220 INDIAN DUCKS. 



jheels and wators, and also such as liavo tho vogotation ovoryAvhoro dense ; 

 on the other liand, tliey do not care for quite open water ^vithout vegetation 

 of any kind wliatever. 



Even to tin's last, however, there is no absolutely fixed rule, for they 

 sometimes visit the sea itself, kee])ing, as a rule, to harl)Ours, estuaries, (fee. 

 When shot in such ])laces they, like most other ducks got under the 

 same circumstances, will be found to have a very rank and fishy taste, 

 though when shot inland on their more ordinary haunts they are very 

 uniformly excellent in flavour. Their bad flavour is, of course, due to their 

 food, which, wdien they take to the seashore, consists of tiny marine shell- 

 tish, fishes, &c. ; wdiereas, wdien in fresh water, it consists maiidy of a 

 vegetable diet, though, like all ducks, they are more or less omnivorous. 



A near relation to this bird is the famous Canvas-back of America, so 

 dear to the epicures of that continent, differing little from our bird in 

 coloration, though it is rather larger and also slightly paler below. So 

 close are the two birds in appearance, however, that, as Finn relates, a 

 wretched poulterer in England, who had received, and was selling, a con- 

 signment of Canvas-backs fi'om America in ice, was jirosecuted for selling- 

 Pochards out of season. Most of us would jjrobably think it was a very 

 good thing, too, if such prosecutions helped to enforce a close time in 

 America as well as in England. 



It is a fine, ra])id, and graceful "swimmer, the Avater — not land or air — 

 being its real element. Finn notes : — '" This Pochard swims particularly 

 low in water, and very much down by the stern." The notes of this 

 ornithologist on duck habits and manners are in great })art made jiot only 

 from wald birds, viewed of necessity from some distance, but also from 

 close observation of birds in captivity, and are, in cons(M|uence, worthy of 

 careful attention. 



They are, of course, like all other Pochards, wonderful divers, and the 

 greater part of their food is obtained by diving ; but they will also dive 

 and swim after one another in l)lay, and Hume remarks that when thus 

 playing they seem to sit far more lightly on the water than at other times. 



Their powers of flight are not equal to those of swinnning and diving ; 

 once on the wing, they go away at a good pace, but th(>y are slow off the 

 water and awkward as well. 



Hume noticed that when there is a wind they always, if possible, rise 

 against it. This is not, however, I think, typical any more of these ducks 

 than it is of most, if not nearly all, water birds, as well as many land ones. 

 In the old days, when Adjutants were so common in Calcutta, one could. 



