274 INDIAN DUCKS 



" The eyes of the female are l)rown, rarely grey or whitish." (Finn). 



Measurements.— Length about 16 inches, wing about T!j, tail 2'3, bill 

 from point of forehead 1'7, from extreme base 1'98, from gape 1'9, in breadth 

 '61, and at widest part '85, tarsus about 1'4. 



"The female is smaller than the male, especially about the bill; Init 

 females in this species appear to vary in size much more than the males, and, 

 as in the Tufted Pochard, some are much duller and less like the males than 

 others." (Finn.) 



A young male in my possession has the whole head mottled brown and 

 black, the new black feathers showing the sheen of the usual green gloss ; 

 the breast is a queer mixture of dirty yellowish-brown and the deep rufous 

 or bay of the adult bird ; the lower abdomen and vent are mixed brown and 

 white. 



Another young male exactly answers to the description above given for 

 the female, but that the definition between breast and abdomen is very sharp, 

 and the olive gloss on the wing is highly developed. 



Baer's Pochard is the eastern form of the common white-eyed pochard, 

 to which it is very closely allied, yet, as far as fully adult birds are concerned, 

 in the case of which it is very easily distinguishable, it would appear to 

 average a much heavier, bulkier bird ; and all the birds in my collection, 

 among them two received through Mr. Finn, have proportionately the bill 

 much larger, both longer and wider. Neither Blanford, Salvadori, nor 

 anyone else, as far as I can gather, seems to have noticed this ; but to me, 

 when specimens of the two subspecies lie side by side, this great difference 

 in the bills is what first draws attention. 



Of course, my series is a very small one, and it is quite possible that large 

 series might show intermediate sizes in both races. 



Distribution. — The range of this duck extends, according to 

 Salvadori, from Kamtschatka to Shanghai and Japan; it descends 

 south in winter into South China and Burma, and less often into 

 India. 



Mr. Finn, who has kindly given me carfe blanche to use his notes, 

 thus sums up the records of its appearance in India : — 



" It was apparently obtained in Bengal in 1825, and Blyth 

 certainly got one female in the Calcutta Bazaar in 1842 or 1843, but 

 did not identify it, which is not surprising, seeing that it had not then 

 been recognized as a species. Then, at the end of February, 1896, I 

 got eleven full-plumaged birds, and since then the species has come in 

 greater or less numbers every cold weather. I have got three males 

 and a female this month (the former from a dealer), and saw what 

 was either a small dull female or a hybrid with the common White- 

 eye about the middle of January. We have other birds in plumage 

 intermediate between the two White-eyes, and I therefore now think 

 that 'they jnter-breed." 



