POCHARD. 577 



ham at Merton in the south of the county of Norfolk. These species are 

 the Mallard, Shoveller, Pochard, Gadwall, Garganey, Teal, and Tufted 

 Duck. In this part of Norfolk there is some very fine farming-land and 

 many woods containing grand old trees ; but this rich country is varied 

 with large tracts of rough stony ground, sprinkled over with heather and 

 gorse in the higher parts, and running down to swamps and bogs in the 

 low-lying districts, which are given over to rank vegetation of various 

 kinds reeds, rushes, sedges, flags, &c. Here and there are natnral lakes 

 or meres, from the size of a pond up to a hundred acres, and in some 

 places artificial pieces of water have been made by damming up the streams. 

 The soil is poor and sandy and has never been cultivated ; but plantations 

 have been made at intervals, and alders, willows, and brambles have been 

 allowed to run riot in the hollows. It is difficult to imagine a more 

 charming country, the paradise of the ornithologist, though possibly the 

 despair of the farmer. Fortunately this property is in the hands of a 

 naturalist, and the Ducks and other birds breeding on the edges of the 

 meres are carefully preserved. On the 14th of May last year Lord Wal- 

 singham took me to visit several of these sheets of water and showed me 

 seven species of Ducks in a perfectly wild state. Near Thompson Mere 

 are several very small ponds : on a tall tussock of sedge a Pochard was 

 sitting on ten eggs near the margin of one of these little ponds, and on 

 the edge of another the gamekeeper showed us the nest of a Waterhen 

 containing five eggs, the nest of a Pochard with ten eggs, and that of a 

 Tufted Duck with six of its own eggs and one of a Pochard. Each of these 

 nests was built on a tussock of sedge, and was entirely concealed by the leaves 

 and flowering stalks of the Carex which formed it. The nest of the Pochard 

 is merely a hollow lined with dead grass and sedge and, after the bird has 

 begun to sit, with down. Ten is the usual number of eggs ; but seven or 

 eight are often found, and sometimes as many as thirteen. They vary in 

 length from 2'45 to 2'2 inch, and in breadth from 1*75 to 1*65 inch. They 

 scarcely differ in colour from eggs of the Scaup, Tufted Duck, and Pheasant. 

 Small eggs of the Pochard are indistinguishable from large eggs of the 

 Tufted Duck. The down is almost the same size and colour as that of the 

 Mallard, greyish brown, without white tips, but with obscure white centres ; 

 it is not nearly so black as that of the Tufted Duck. 



The Pochard resembles the Tufted Duck very closely in its habits. It is 

 quite as accomplished a diver, and seeks its food in the same manner by 

 tearing up branches of weeds from the bottom of the lakes which it 

 frequents. Naumann says that it is more exclusively a vegetable feeder 

 than some of its allies, though it does not refuse insects or small shell-fish 

 if they come in its way. This may probably account for its great partiality 

 for fresh water, even in winter, though it is often seen on the coast, and also 

 for the fact that it is much better eating than its allies. Its flight is rapid, 



