In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 101 



takes place about a month later than the other, apparently from its 

 breeding later ; as Waterton accurately remarks. 



^x Sponsa. " Summer Duck." It is very doubtful whether 

 we can lawfully claim this species as occurring amongst us in a 

 truly wild state, but various specimens having been taken at 

 Christchurch it is worth while to mention the occurrence. Four 

 or five specimens have occurred there lately. A nice male bird 

 was killed in the harbour in 1880; and Hart has two other local 

 specimens in his collection also. But it remains a query whether 

 these birds, thus procured, are not the offspring of pinioned birds 

 that have escaped after hatching out. The bird itself is really an 

 American species, and goes in that country under the name of the 

 Wood Duck. It is a very handsomely coloured bird j but scarcely 

 one that you could properly class amid our indigenous birds. Meyer 

 includes it in the British list from a specimen procured apparently 

 in a perfectly wild condition at Dorking, in Surrey. 



Fuligula Ferina. " The Red-headed Pochard." We come now 

 to a group of the diviug Ducks ; their squat round bodies marking 

 them out clearly from the other species. The Red-headed 

 Pochard we find occasionally in our water-meadows in hardish 

 winters, where I have both seen and shot them : but they do not 

 come frequently amongst us. Mr. Baker has a pair from the water 

 at Stourhead, and they visit annually the new lake at Stourton. One 

 hard winter's day a bird fancier happening to call upon me, I asked 

 him if he would like to take a turn down the meadows to the Broad, 

 as there would be sure to be a good many birds on the water. We 

 accordingly sallied out with our walking-sticks, and were well re- 

 warded for our trouble. There was snow on the ground, and the 

 Broad water by the Castle was simply covered with Ducks. There 

 must have been quite five or six hundred water- fowl there of 

 different species. I counted roughly more than two hundred that 

 rose on our approach, and there were a far larger number that 

 remained on the water without rising. I detected six different 

 kinds of Anatidge, and there were very likely one or two more species 

 that I did not discern. The first I noticed was a batch of Red- 

 headed Pochards, besides which were many pairs of the little Black 



