THE WIGEON AND POCHARDS 271 



between a passenger steamer and a steam-tug. The 

 surface-feeding ducks can dive, and do under certain 

 circumstances ; but they do not dive for a living, 

 the others do ; and the diving ducks without any 

 exception are stoutly-built birds. 



Pochards are as hard as nail-bags, and require a lot 

 of killing. If they are dead, well and good, but it 

 is only lost time to pursue wounded birds, even by 

 boat, for you will not get them. They are thorough 

 divers, diving not only deep but far. Their bills will 

 occasionally be just poked up for air, and then away 

 they go again. 



Bays and estuaries of great extent suit Pochards, 

 if water — not fresh, but what the marsh-men call 

 the " dead drinking-water " — that forms the fleets 

 and lagoons is close to them, with reed and sedge 

 cover. They will leave the tide to rest there, and 

 in Essex ponds were specially formed for their 

 capture. 



Essex has been, and is now, I think, equal to 

 Lincolnshire or Norfolk as a resort for fowl. The 

 great estuary of the Blackwater river, with its miles 

 of ooze, covered with food at low water, attracts them, 

 as it once did on the opposite shore. The Essex 

 decoys were, from the nature of the feeding-slubs, 

 situated near the tide. Three only are known to 

 me now as being in use, at least they were in use in 

 1886 or 1888, but twenty-six are no longer used. 

 This important fact speaks for itself. 



I shall not speak of the tons upon tons of fowl 

 captured in past times. Full particulars, carefully 



