paget's pochard. 207 



the structure or situation of the nest, or the number and 

 description of eggs, and the date of their production.* 



Paget's Pochard. This handsome hybrid between 

 the common and white-eyed pochards was first recorded 

 in this country from a male showing very slight signs of 

 immaturity, killed on Rollesby broad, on February 27th, 

 1845. Mr. W. R. Fisher, writing in the " Zoologist " of 

 that year (p. 1137), describes "a variety of duck inter- 

 mediate in size between the common pochard and the 

 nyroca, or white-eyed pochard," rightly surmising it to 

 be " a hybrid between these two species." It was ob- 

 served to be much tamer than some wigeons with which 

 it was in company, and swam very low in the water. 

 In the same magazine for 1847 (p. 1778), Mr. Fisher 

 gives a fuller description of that specimen, with a wood- 

 cut. In that year, also, Mr. A. D. Bartlett purchased 

 an example of this bird, in Leadenhall Market, which 

 is now in the Derby Museum at Liverpool ; and, on 

 these examples, he ("Proc. Zool. Soc," 1847, p. 48) 

 established a new species which he named FuUgula 

 ferinoides ; and, in compliment to the late Mr. C. J. 

 Paget, one of the authors of the " Sketch of the Natural 

 History of Great Yarmouth," called it "Paget's pochard." 

 It is needless to say that Mr. Fisher's first surmise was 

 the correct one, and that " Paget's pochard " is not now 

 recognised as a distinct sjDecies. 



On the 24th February, 1859, a second Norfolk speci- 

 men of this bird, an adult male, was killed at Little 

 Waxham. Both these are now in Mr. Gurney's collec- 



* Mr. J. H. Gurney has favoured me with the following note 

 on the change of colour in the irides in a living pochard: — "I 

 am not sure that I ever recorded the following fact. I was re- 

 moving a pinioned adult male pochard from one pond to another, 

 and, soon after taking the bird in my hand, I observed the bright 

 cherry red of the irides gradually disappearing till it was replaced 

 by yellow, hardly, if at all, tinged with red ; this was probably the 

 effect of fright, as, when the bird was released and placed in 

 another small pond (near enough to be well within sight), the 

 irides gradually, but speedily, resumed their normal cherry-red 

 tint." 



