The Pochard. 139 



than in England. In Scotland immense flocks visit tlie fresh-water lochs of the 

 west and the muddy estuaries of the ep,st coast. On Loch lyomond, Mr. Robert 

 Gray says, hundreds congregate feeding in the shallows round the islands and 

 flying in company with Wigeon and Tufted Ducks. In the . Shetlands it 

 occurs in October in small flocks, but at uncertain periods. In the Orkneys, 

 in some years, in vast numbers on the lochs of Skaill and Stenness ; a winter 

 visitor also to both the Outer and Inner Hebrides, but scarcely an abundant 

 species. 



Mr. Haigh has met with it in Merionethshire both on the coast and inland, 

 but odd birds only, and at long intervals. 



I have never considered the Pochard a common species on the east coast of 

 England ; in some winters it is fairly plentiful in the Humber, and in others we 

 may perhaps never obtain an example. In the winter of 1885-6 it was common, 

 particularly adult males, and the following winter both adults and immature, and 

 again, 1889-90, with a preponderance of male birds. The sexes probably to some 

 extent separate in winter. On January 26th, in 1889, I saw twelve adult males 

 swimming in company on Croxby pond, a lonely sheet of water on the Ivincolnshire 

 north wolds, and at the same place in 1891, on March 19th, six adult males and 

 four immature males, acquiring the adult plumage. Again on January 9th, 1893, 

 three were shot from a small flock of five with a punt gun at Tetney, on the 

 Lincolnshire coast, these were all adult males in splendid plumage. On May 

 23rd, in 1863, I saw three adult males in the Humber; these may have come 

 from some local breeding place like Hornsea mere. 



Mr. Abel Chapman (" Bird-life on the Borders ") says : — " In punt-shooting 

 on the coast we never meet with them." He considers that although formerly 

 abundant, according to the recollections of old fowlers, the Pochard is now rarely 

 met with. 



Of its former status in the fens of the eastern counties we know very little. 

 The Pochard was much disliked by decoymen, because when a flock entered a 

 decoy they speedily, by diving, devoured the corn intended for other Ducks, and 

 were far too wary to enter the pipes, and in those cases in which the entice- 

 ments of food induced them to do so, they invariably managed to escape by diving 

 towards the entrance. It was very rarely that one allowed itself to be cir- 

 cumvented and decoyed into the tunnels. 



Sir R. Payne-Gallwey (" The Fowler in Ireland ") says Pochards arrive about 

 the end of November in small parties, and increase up to the middle of January. 

 The majority of those killed appear to be adult males. Their abundance or other- 

 wise seems dependent on the severity, or otherwise, of the season, they may be 



