202 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



which are augmented in severe weather. On all the 

 broads, and at times on other inland waters, they con- 

 gregate during the day, and are objects of considerable 

 aversion to the decoy men, for in addition to it being 

 almost impossible to take them in the decoys, their rest- 

 lessness on the water is very disturbing to the other 

 fowl. It is very pretty to see them chasing each other 

 and diving for the sunken corn at the mouth of the pipe, 

 but the decoyman well knows that they will neither 

 enter themselves nor will they allow the other fowl to do 

 so, and that should they by chance be found up the pipe, 

 no matter how shallow the water is, they will dive back 

 and escape. Various methods have been tried to secure 

 them, such as sunken nets, or snares under the water; 

 but should they be thus entrapped, the struggles of the 

 drowning pochards beneath the water alarm the fowl 

 outside, and fatally .disturb the quiet of the decoy. It 

 thus happens that although large numbers of these birds 

 may be on the water they are very rarely captured, and 

 those which come to market are killed by the punt gun- 

 ners, who frequently get " lumping " shots at the first 

 dawn of day, when they begin to " head up " together 

 preparatory to their departure for their day quarters, or 

 are killed at " flight time " in the morning and evening 

 as they arrive at or depart from their daily resting- 

 places. 



Mr. W. B. Monement tells me that the pochard is 

 not so plentiful at Blakeney as it used to be.* Twenty 

 years ago they were generally to be found in small 

 numbers both at Blakeney, and at Salthouse when the 

 marshes were flooded. Now they are rarely seen, even 

 during the most severe weather, but are much more 

 plentiful in the Wash. The same applies to the scaup 

 duck. 



Mr. Lubbock (ed. 2., p. 137) states that immense 

 flocks of pochards were wont to rest all day in the middle 

 of Eollesby decoy, whence they poured forth to feed every 

 evening. Hickling Broad, he states, was one great resort 



Mr. Monement states that the habit of partially submerging 

 the body when an enemy is in sight is very marked with the 

 pochard. 



