173 



POCHAED. 



Fi'LiGULA FERiNA (Liiinseus). 



A wmter visitor, occurring periodically, and not un- 

 common. It is rare inland, and is not often seen at a 

 greater distance from the sea than the flooded country 

 near the coast : Mr. "W. Naylor, however, preserved one 

 killed at Whalley on November l'2th 1867 ; Dr. Kershaw 

 of Middleton has a specimen killed there in December 

 1879 ; and Mr. John Weld informs me that two males 

 were shot on the 6th January' 1880, on a small pond in 

 Chipping. On the lake in Woodfold Park, near Black- 

 burn, I am told by Mr. Pi. J. Howard, a pair of pinioned 

 birds, which had been there four years without breeding, 

 hatched five young (out of six eggs laid in May 1882), 

 three of which flew away as soon as they were strong on 

 the wing. These — for there can be little doubt they were 

 the same individuals — returned in the spring of 1883, 

 bred, and altogether about twenty birds were hatched. 

 Most of the young were taken by the pike, and the original 

 pair having been shot, about six pairs now remain, none 

 of which are pinioned and all more than semi-wild. 

 [jNIr. E. J. Howard sends me the following : — 

 " In 1886 a brood of hybrids between Pochard and 

 Tufted Duck was produced in Woodfold Park. As the 

 late Mr. Daniel Thwaites kindly allowed me to do what 

 I liked with the birds, I sent one to Mr. H. Saunders, 

 who, after exhibiting it at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society on December 21, deposited it in the British 

 Museum (Natural History), two I forwarded to the 

 Zoological Societ3''s Gardens, and two females I put on 

 the reservoir in the Blackburn Corporation Park. In 

 1887 another brood — the produce of the original pair — 



