TWO OF THE BRITISH ANATID^. 231 



Wassand Mere, Yorkshire, near Hull, is, perhaps, as famous as any 

 breeding-place of this bird. Here it is protected by Henry Strickland 

 Constable, Esq., of Wassand, and may be seen in great numbers. He has 

 kindly furnished me with the following particulars : — 



" The mere is nearly five hundred acres in extent ; and the deepest part is 

 about fourteen feet. It contains two islands ; and the country round is rather 

 flat. Three years ago [i. e. from 1877] the Pochards laid at the usual time in 

 the reeds ; but the rain fell so continuously that all the eggs were destroyed 

 by the rising waters of the mere." 



I have in my collection, a sitting of eggs from this spot, presented to 

 me in 1841 by the late Mr. H, B. Milner ; but these need no description. 



Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell has kindly sent me a copy of his list of the 

 rarer birds of Dorsetshire. In it he does not mention that the Pochard 

 breeds there; but in the ' Zoologist,' 3rd ser. Sept. 1877, p. 385 ("Ornitho- 

 logical Notes from Dorsetshire "), he says : — 



" At one of these lakes [Poole and Studland] Pochards have bred for 

 the last three years. In the spring of 1875 a male Pochard, incapacitated 

 from accompanying his companions northwards by a fractured wing, was 

 fortunate enough to induce a female to remain with him, and a brood of young 

 red-heads appeared on the lake, which was so carefully and successfully 

 watched that the following year (1876) three broods were hatched." 



At p. 386 Mr. T. M. Pike, of Westport, Wareham, mentions, in an 

 interesting article, that on a pool in the above county thirty Pochards had 

 been hatched this year ; " but the eels, or other fish, had destroyed the greater 

 part of them." 



A writer in 'The Field,' November 17th, 1877 (p. 574), records an 

 unusually late brood of the common wild Duck at Rhiwlas, Bala : " last 

 week," while out shooting, he came across an old bird with twelve young 

 ones. 



VOL. III. 2 1. 



