POCHARD. 203 



at their flight, the water being very shallow, and abound- 

 ing with " a peculiar weed, pochard grass as it is called.'* 

 What this pochard grass may be I have never been able 

 satisfactorily to determine, no such name, so far as I can 

 learn, being applied to any aquatic weed by the marsh- 

 men in the present day ; in reply to my suggestion that 

 it might possibly be a Potamogeton, Mr. A. Bennett, of 

 Croydon, was kind enough to point out that Chara aspera 

 covers the bottom of Hickling Broad for acres, to the 

 exclusion of everything else, that patches of Potamo- 

 geton pectinatus appear only here and there, and that he 

 thinks the Chara may be the attraction. Speaking of the 

 fecundity of the semi-domesticated wigeon in Sir Ralph 

 Payne-Gallwey's decoy at Thirkleby, in Yorkshire, a 

 writer in the Yorkshire Naturalist (August, 1887, p. 243), 

 says : " This fecundity is, we are informed, probably at- 

 tributable to the weed ( Chara foetida var atrovirensj which 

 grows so profusely in the decoy, and which the wigeon s 

 are never tired of pulling and eating." It would at first 

 sight seem improbable that so apparently unattractive a 

 weed as Chara (owing to the calcareous nature of its 

 skeleton, in addition to its habit of evolving sulphuretted 

 hydrogen) should form a suitable food for diving ducks, 

 but there seems reason to believe that Mr. Bennett's 

 suggestion is correct. 



The bulk of the pochards leave us, as a rule, about 

 the middle of March; but, in late seasons, flocks are 

 found till nearly the end of April, and every year some 

 remain to breed in various parts of the county. This 

 has long been known to be the case, and is thus referred 

 to by Hunt (" Brit. Ornithology," ii,, p. 808) : " It has 

 been doubted whether any of this species remain with us 

 after the vernal migration to the north. We are assured 

 by Mr. Smith, of Diss, that he has seen both sexes of 

 the pochard during the breeding season on Scoulton 

 mere, and that he found their nests and took their eggs, 

 some of which are at this time in his collection. A 

 female bird was shot in Norfolk, on the 14th July, 1818, 

 so that it appears certain that a few, at least, remain 

 with us the whole year." 



Mr. Lubbock also speaks of having heard from " an 

 accurate observer that he has shot young pochards at 

 2c2 



