228 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
were within an hour or two of Geut-El-Nosara (the port of 
that lake) flock after flock crossed our bows, all Wigeons, 
and chiefly drakes. There was no mistake about them, 
even if I had not examined four or five which had been 
caught. The only one we shot ourselves was a female, on 
the 3rd of March, near Minieh. Hasselquist says,—“ This 
kind was brought alive in great numbers (to Cairo) about 
the middle and latter end of November; they are caught 
in nets at night, just before the water is entirely returned or 
dried up.’* 
196. POCHARD, Fuligula ferina (Linn.); “Homr.” 
Of all the myriads of Ducks at lake Menzaleh, Pochards 
seemed the commonest. I saw acres and acres of them. 
In one place an immense flock, which I believe were chiefly 
‘Pochards, extended three miles as they sat upon the water, 
without any visible break. The Pochard is occasionally 
subject to a white patch on the foreneck. I have seen two 
drakes and a duck thus marked.f 
197. WHITE-EYED Duck, Myroca ferruginea (Gm.). 
‘We only got this in the winter. It was not uncommon 
then in the Delta, and we shot six, but only one was a fine 
old drake. 
* A tame Wigeon of my father’s began to shed its plumage on the 
17th of June, and completed the moult on the 2oth of August. It 
began to reassume the male plumage on the 19th of September, and. 
finished the process November roth, having been nearly four months of 
the year in a state of change. In the above instance I do not think the 
period was lengthened by confinement, for I have often noticed what a 
long time the drakes of this and other species are in getting their per- 
fect dress. 
+ My father kept a drake Pochard thirteen years. Once, when he 
was carrying it from one pond to another, its red eye changed to yellow 
from fright, but rapidly recovered its original colour after being released. 
