'2G4 INDIAN DUCKS 



and fishy taste, though when shot inland on its more ordinary 

 haunts, it is very uniformly excellent in liavour. Its bad flavour 

 is, of course, due to its food, which, when it takes to the seashore, 

 consists of tiny marine shell-fish, fishes, Sec. ; whereas, when in fresh 

 water, it consists mainly of a vegetable diet, though, like all ducks, 

 it is more or less omnivorous. 



A near relation to this bird is the famous canvas-back of America, 

 so dear to the epicures of that continent, differing little from our 

 bird in colouration, though it is rather larger, and also slightly paler 

 below. So close are the two birds in appearance, however, that as 

 Finn relates, a wretched poulterer in England, who had received, 

 and was selling, a consignment of canvas-backs from America in 

 ice, was prosecuted for selling Pochards out of season. 



It is a fine, rapid, and graceful swimmer, the water — not land 

 or air — being its real element. Finn notes : — " This pochard 

 swims particularly low in water, and very much down by the 

 stern." 



It is, of course, like all other pochards, a wonderful diver, and 

 the greater part of its food is obtained by diving ; but the birds 

 will also dive and swim after one another in play, and Hume 

 remarks that when thus playing they seem to sit far more lightly 

 on the water than at other times. 



Their powers of flight are not equal to those of swimming and 

 diving ; once on the wing, they go away at a good pace, but they 

 are slow off the water and awkward as well. 



Hume noticed that when there is a wind they always, if possible, 

 rise against it. This is not, however, I think, typical any more of 

 these ducks than it is of most, if not nearly all, water-birds, as well 

 as many land ones. In the old days, when adjutants were so 

 common in Calcutta, one could, during the rains, watch one or 

 more any day getting up off the maidan there, first expanding its 

 huge wings and then going off in ungainly strides until the wind 

 worked against it and under its broad sails, when a lusty kick or 

 two shot it off the ground. 



On land, too. Pochards are very clumsy and slow , though they 

 walk well enough when pushed to it. 



Principally night-feeders, they also feed throughout the day. 



