INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 17 
Chenab and other Punjaub rivers. Is it purely a river duck with us ? 
Or will it also occur in jheels? Other sportsmen in the Punjaub must 
help us to settle these questions.” 
“ P.S.—My last Golden-eye is a young female, weight 1]b. 30z..... 
It was seen with a number of others ona little pool. There were no 
other ducks about.” 
Thus Stoker seems to have got no less than five specimens, and a 
sixth was got by an officer whom he does not name. Barnes got one 
other and these are all we have recorded, none having been since met 
with, so that it looks as if Stoker’s queries as to its regular appearance 
must be answered in the negative. In its actions and habits the Golden- 
eye seems to be very much like the Pochards, Like them, it is a 
wonderful bird on the water as well as in it, and what I have said of 
the Tufted Pochard and its predeliction for diving and swimming and, 
if possible, escaping by these means rather than by flight, would equally 
well apply to this bird. Like the Pochard, too, it is slow off the water 
and rises at an oblique angle with great splashing and commotion. 
Maegillivray says that it is capable of rising off the water at one spring 
with the help of a breeze, 2. e., probably witb a strong head wind which 
getting under it would lift the bird at once. 
Unlike the Pochards, however, it is credited with being fairly active 
on land, and the author just quoted says that they sometimes repose on 
spits of land. 
As are the Pochards, so is this bird found alike on salt and fresh 
waters, but there is no doubt that it prefers fresh water to salt. It 
would seem that open waters are preferred to small enclosed pieces, and 
deep, clear water to shallow vegetation covered pools and swamps. 
This, of course, we should expect to be the case with a diving duck 
whose food consists, as the Golden-eye’s does, almost entirely of animal 
matter procured by diving. It is said to feed on “ testaceous mollusca, 
crustacea and fishes,” also on water insects and grubs and, but not often, 
ulso on vegetable food, principally deep water weed-roots and similar 
articles. 
Its flight is swift and strong, and Macgillivray says: “ They fly with 
rapidity in a direct manner; their small, stiff, sharp-pointed wings 
producing a whistling sound, which in calm weather may be heard a 
considerable distance. . . 
3 
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