130 ANATID.E. 



tlie onward progress of the birds. My informant and another 

 fowler having remarked the two species feeding at high -water, 

 and then only at a particular part of the bay, examined the 

 bottom there, when the tide was out, and observed these lines. 

 They picked up some shells from the stratum of ooze above the 

 sand, and, on shooting the birds, foimd the same kind in their 

 stomachs ; — these shells being brought to me, proved to be Tellina 

 solichda,oiB\n2iW. size, not exceeding one- third of an inch in diameter. 



Mr. Selby remarks, that " the flesh of this bird is tender and 

 well-flavoured, unless killed in the neighbourhood of the sea, 

 when it frequently acquires a rank and fishy taste" (p. 349). 

 Mr. Yarrell observes more fully : — " Dun-birds [pochards] are in 

 general remarkable for the excellence of their flesh, and probably 

 but little inferior to the far-famed canvas-backed duck of the 

 United States, which it very closely resembles, in the colour of 

 its plumage ; but our dun-bird is the smaller of the two. As 

 the canvas-backed duck of America is considered to derive the 

 goodness and flavour for which it is so much esteemed from its 

 taking a considerable portion of a particular vegetable food [said 

 by Pr. Nuttall to be Valisneria Americana, Zostera marina, and 

 Riippia marifmia,'] and is much less prized in spring when 

 deprived of it, and obliged to live entirely at seaj so our dun- 

 birds are best while they feed at the mouths of rivers, and about 

 fresh- water ; but when they feed at sea on fishes, Crustacea, and 

 moUusca, I have found them coarse and ill-flavoured" (vol. iii. 

 p. 235). Wilson and Audubon mention the pochard as highly 

 esteemed in America, and the latter author states that he found 

 food of various kinds in those killed in the shallow ponds of the 

 interior. The pochard, though considered better than the scaup 

 in Belfast, is but little esteemed for the table, and brings no 

 higher price to the shooter than that species — from six to nine- 

 pence each. The dealers rarely purchase them, except as a favour 

 from the regular shooters, who supply them with wigeon and 

 brent geese. Yet pochards should be particularly good here, as 

 they always find abundance of vegetable food. Nothing else 



