POCHARD. 335 



rica, as we are told by Mr. Audubon ; is a winter visitor 

 to this country, appearing about the beginning of October, 

 and leaving us again in the spring, to seek, during its breed- 

 ing-season, higher northern regions. 



While here it resorts to inland lakes and rivers, as well 

 as the sea-shore, and though a difficult bird to take in a 

 decoy on account of its shyness and caution, and the fa- 

 cility with which it dives enabling it to get back under 

 water in the pipe, yet, from being very abundant as a species, 

 great numbers, according to authorities, are taken every 

 season. Many thousands are sold every winter in one 

 market only in London ; and Montagu mentions that the 

 method formerly practised for taking the Pochard was 

 something similar to that of taking Woodcocks. Poles 

 were erected at the avenues to the decoys, and after a great 

 number of these birds had collected for some time on the 

 pond, to which wild-fowl resort only by day, and go to 

 the neighbouring fens to feed by night, a net was at a 

 given time erected by pulleys to these poles, beneath which 

 a deep pit had previously been dug ; and as these birds, 

 like the Woodcocks, go to feed just as it is dark, and are 

 said always to rise against the wind, a whole flock was 

 sometimes taken together in this manner ; for if once they 

 strike against the net, they never attempt to return, but 

 flutter down the net till they are received into the pit, 

 from whence they cannot rise, and thus we are told twenty 

 dozen have been taken at one catch. 



Dun-birds are in general remarkable for the excellence 

 of their flesh, and probably but little inferior to the far- 

 famed Canvass-backed Duck of the United States, which 

 they very closely resemble in the colour of their plumage ; 

 but our Dun-bird is the smaller Duck of the two. Dun- 

 birds are best while they feed at the mouths of rivers, 

 and about fresh water, but when they feed at sea on fishes, 



