The Pochards. 323 



picking shells or insects off the lotus 

 leaves ; but they are continually disap- 

 pearing below the surface, often re- 

 appearing with a whole bunch of feathery, 

 slimy weed, which all present join in 

 gobbling up. Sometimes they remain a 

 very long time out of sight — I should guess 

 nearly two minutes (it seems an age) — but 

 generally they do not, when thus feeding, 

 keep under more than say forty to fifty 

 seconds. 



" I fancy that they feed preferentially 

 by day ; first, because when in their 

 favourite haunts I have invariably found 

 them, when I have had opportunities of 

 watching them unperceived, busy feeding 

 at all hours, and never asleep, as night- 

 feeding Ducks so constantly are, between 

 1 1 a.m. and 3 p.m. ; and, secondly, because 

 I have so rarely killed them when flight 

 shooting. When settled on some comfort- 

 able, rush-embosomed, weed-interwoven 

 broad, I am pretty certain that they do 

 not change their quarters at night-fall, as 

 when encamped near any of their chosen 

 day-haunts I have heard their harsh 

 familiar call at intervals throughout the 

 midnight hours ; but of course in the 

 less common case, when they affect bare- 

 shored lakes or rivers by day — and some 



