RED-CRESTED POCHARD. 409 



male in the collection of Sir John Camphell-Orde, and exhibited 

 before the Zoological Society by Mr. P. L. Sclater, was shot 

 by Mr. MacDougall, of Lunga, in January 1862, on a fresh- 

 water loch in Argyllshire, where it was in company with 

 some Goldeneyes (P. Z, S. 1862, p. 163). Before the same 

 Society, Mr. A. G. More exhibited a male belonging to Sir 

 R. Payne-Gallwey, shot on the 18th January, 1881, near 

 Tralee, co. Kerry : the only occurrence up to the present in 

 Ireland (Zool. 1881, p. 143). 



The Red-crested Pochard has not been proved to occur in 

 Scandinavia ; and it is, at most, a rare straggler to Holland, 

 Belgium, and the northern part of France ; nor are its 

 visits to the south of the latter country, or to the Swiss 

 lakes, at all frequent. Even in the Spanish Peninsula this 

 beautiful Duck can only be considered as a very local species, 

 almost confined to the lakes of the east side and the Balearic 

 Islands, all of which are rapidly being drained. In Italy 

 it is not uncommon, and readers of Willughby's ' Ornitho- 

 logy ' will recollect that our countryman obtained it more 

 than two centuries ago in the market at Rome. In the 

 marshes of Sicily it breeds in some numbers ; it has visited 

 Malta on migration ; Lord Lilford found it common in 

 winter at Butrinto, Albania ; and it occurs rather sparingly 

 in Greece. It breeds in the valley of the Danube ; and in 

 suitable localities in Southern, Central, and even Northern 

 Germany ; also in Russia, especially in the neighbourhood 

 of the Caspian. Eastward it is found in summer in suitable 

 localities in Persia, Western and Eastern Turkestan, and 

 Kashgaria ; its winter range extending over Northern and 

 Central India, where the species is comparatively abundant. 

 Mr, Hume says, that although usually in moderate-sized 

 flocks of from ten to thirty, yet occasionally on large sheets 

 of water they are seen in thousands. 



In Northern Africa the Red-crested Pochard is of acci- 

 dental occurrence in the western part of Morocco ; but it 

 breeds sparingly and is resident on the lakes of Algeria, 

 where Canon Tristram and Mr. Salvin found its nests. It 

 appears to be rare in Egypt, neither Capt. Shelley nor 



VOL. IV. 3 G 



