RED-CRESTED POCHARD. 567 



FULIGULA RUFINA. 



RED-CRESTED POCHARD. 



(PLATE 64.) 



Anas fistularis cristata, firiss. Orn. vi. p. 398 (1760). 



Anas rufina, Pall. Itin. ii. App. p. 713 (1773) ; et auctorum plurimorum Gmelin, 



Latham, Temminck, (Dresser), (Sounders), &c. 

 Brauta rufina (Pall.), Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 564. 



Fuligula rufina (Pall.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool xii. pt. ii. p. 188 (1824). 

 N.-tta rufina (Pall.), Kaup, Natilrl. Syst. p. 102 (1829). 

 Callichen ruficeps, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 922 (1831). 

 Mergoides rufina (Pall.), Eyton, Ear. Brit. B. p. 57 (1836). 

 Aythya rufina (Pall.), Macgill Man. Brit. B. p. 191 (1842). 



The first record of the Red-crested Pochard in the British Islands is to 

 be found in Hunt's ' British Ornithology' (ii. p. 333), wherein a female 

 bird is figured which was killed on Breydon Broad in Norfolk in July 

 1818. Since that date about a score examples have been obtained, and 

 perhaps as many more observed, eighteen having been seen in one 

 instance on the Thames near Erith. One has been obtained in Scotland, 

 one in Wales, and one, so recently as 1881, in Ireland, as recorded by 

 Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey. The greater number have been obtained in the 

 district lying between the H umber and the Thames, but examples have 

 occurred in Devonshire and Cornwall. Most of the birds have been 

 captured in winter, and are probably visitors from Germany, driven from 

 that country by severe weather. 



The Red-crested Pochard has a very limited range, confined to the south- 

 west portion of the Palsearctic Region. North of about lat. 50 it is an 

 accidental visitor to Pomerania and the Baltic Provinces, Poland, Denmark, 

 Belgium, and the north of France. Its principal habitat is in Spain, 

 the basins of the Mediterranean, Hlack, and Caspian Seas, and Russian 

 Turkestan. In South Europe and Algeria it is a resident, but to the 

 Mediterranean east of Sicily it is an extremely rare winter visitor. 

 It is only a summer visitor to Turkestan, migrating southwards to 

 Afghanistan to winter throughout India. It has no very near ally. 



The Red-crested Pochard does not differ much in its habits from the 

 Common Pochard. It may be regarded as almost exclusively a freshwater 

 species. It loves to frequent the deep still lakes and broads, especially 



