THE POCHARD AND TUFTED-DUCK 265 



build is also somewhat different ; the head is usually heavier and set 

 on a shorter neck, while the feet are placed noticeably farther back, 

 the wings are shorter, and the toes much elongated. In consequence, 

 we find that as a rule these ducks are very bad walkers, and most at 

 home in the water ; their large feet, set well back, give great power 

 of propulsion on or under the water, while on the other hand their 

 capacity for flight is not as a rule so great. For the same reasons the 

 nesting-place is generally quite close to the water, and most of the 

 members of this group spend a considerable part of the year at sea, 

 where, except in rough weather, they are able to feed without the 

 necessity of resorting to mud flats and shallows. 



Of the three species of the genus Nyroca which are treated of in 

 this article, two, the pochard and the tufted-duck, are now well estab- 

 lished with us as breeding species ; while the scaup is only known to 

 have bred on a few occasions in Scotland. On the other hand there 

 is no definite proof that the goldeneye, our only representative of the 

 genus Clangula, has ever nested with us. Both species are, however, 

 familiar to us as winter visitors. 



THE POCHARD AND TUFTED-DUCK 



Except in the case of a few species of birds which were used for 

 food, the materials for estimating the status of any given species in 

 the British Isles, prior to the last hundred years or so, are lamentably 

 scanty. But now we have hosts of observers in every county ready 

 to note the slightest extension of range on the part of any bird which 

 is at all conspicuous, and in consequence we are now able to map out 

 the gradual extension of the breeding range of the British-breeding 

 ducks with some approach to accuracy. In the case of the pochard, 

 the increased breeding area is remarkable, although it sinks into insig- 

 nificance when compared with that of the tufted-duck. In 1865, when 

 A. G. More wrote his excellent paper on the " Distribution of Birds in 



