RED-CRESTED POCHARD. 569 



found ten nests, which were taken between the 12th of May and the 1st of 

 July, but the eggs taken on the latter date were highly incubated. The 

 late clutches are caused by the first eggs that are laid being taken, so that 

 the birds have to lay again. The nests were always built amongst the 

 rushes and flags on a small island in the pond. The foundation was made 

 of decayed stems of rushes or dead leaves, on which a warm bed of down 

 was placed as the full complement of the eggs was completed. -When the 

 female leaves the nest she carefully covers her eggs. Tristram says that 

 in Algeria the male appeared to desert the female as soon as she began 

 to sit. The eggs of the Red-crested Pochard are usually eight or nine in 

 number, and resemble those of the Pochard, but are paler and greener. 

 They vary in length from 2'35 to 2'2 inch, and in breadth from 1*7 to 1*58 

 inch. They almost resemble in colour pale eggs of the Golden-eye ; but 

 there can be no doubt that the down is dark and quite unlike that of the 

 hole-building species. 



Hume says that the Red-crested Pochard arrives on the plains of Upper 

 India at the end of October, but it is the middle- of November before the 

 great bulk of the birds appear. It leaves the southern portion of its 

 winter range in India about the third week in March, and further north 

 about the first week in April. In winter Red-crested Pochards gather 

 into moderate-sized flocks, but on very large sheets of water they often 

 congregate in thousands. Males and females live together, but sometimes 

 flocks are met with composed entirely of males. They afford excellent 

 sport, but their flesh is often rank and unpalatable. 



The Red-crested Pochard is about as large as a Pintail. The adult 

 male in nuptial dress has the entire head and the fore upper neck 

 buffish chestnut, somewhat paler on the elongated feathers of the 

 crown and nape; the hind upper neck, the lower neck, upper mantle, 

 breast, belly, under tail-coverts, rump, and upper tail-coverts are dull 

 black, faintly glossed with purple on the belly, and more distinctly 

 so with green on the other parts; the flanks, axillaries, under wing- 

 coverts, shoulders, primaries, and secondaries (except the outer web of 

 the three first primaries and the tips of all of them, which are dark grey) 

 are pinkish white ; and traces of white vermiculations appear on many 

 of the feathers of the mantle. The back, scapulars, wing-coverts, and 

 innermost secondaries are slaty grey, suffused with pink on the scapulars, 

 which are somewhat filamented. Bill brilliant crimson, brown on the 

 nail ; legs and feet reddish orange, blackish on the webs ; irides red. The 

 general colour of the upper parts of the adult female is greyish brown, 

 suffused with yellowish brown on the head, darkest on the rump and palest 

 on the margins of the scapulars, except the longest ; the white shoulder- 

 patches of the male are absent, and the white on the primaries and seconda- 

 ries is suffused with grey instead of pink. The whole of the underparts are 



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