430 



ANSERES. 



ANATIDiE. 



AN ATI DM. 



>^vi^";^> 



FuLiGiiLA CKISTATA (Leach*). 



THE TUFTED DUCK. 



Fuligula cristata. 



The Tufted Duck is best known as a regular autumn 

 and winter visitor to this country, frequenting our sea- 

 coasts, estuaries, and lakes, where it generally remains till 

 March. During that portion of the year it is frequently 

 seen in company with the Pochard, the Scaup, the Golden- 

 eye, and other diving-ducks, but also in small parties, 

 and sometimes in pairs only. It is a plump, short bird, 

 depressed in form, swimming low ; and although it frequents 

 our fresh waters in considerable numbers, it is considered a 

 difficult Duck to take in a decoy, on account of the facility 

 with which it dives and gets back in the pipe towards the 

 open entrance and the pool. 



A tolerable and, apparently, increasing number of Tufted 

 Ducks remain to breed in the British Islands, and nowhere 

 more abundantly than in Nottinghamshire, a county in 



* Anas cristata, Leach, Oat. M. and B. Brit. Mns. p. 39 (18]«). 



