RED-CRESTED POCHARD 109 



animal food is probably more important in summer than in winter. Hume and 

 Marshall (1879) remark that they have found small frogs, fish-spawn, shells, insects, 

 grubs, worms and sometimes even tiny fish in the stomachs. One male which they 

 examined had gorged itself entirely on small fish about an inch in length, and another 

 which Baker (1921) dissected in the Sunderbunds, was found to have fed entirely on 

 "small red crabs." 



Courtship and Nesting. The courtship is not a showy affair although the 

 males are very noisy, uttering their sharp wheezing cries and elevating their splendid 

 crests. At this time they are animated and exceedingly interesting to watch. 

 Millais (1913) describes the males as throwing the fore part of the body from the 

 water, depressing the bill upon the fore neck and at the same moment erecting and 

 spreading all the beautiful feathers of the crest. The body seems never to be raised 

 to a perpendicular position, and those I myself have watched hardly reared up at all; 

 but it is seldom that one observer can get a clear picture of all the display attitudes. 



It is not certain whether young birds breed the first year, as do the Common Po- 

 chards. Specimens reared in captivity seem to indicate that most if not all do not 

 nest till the second year (Wormald, in litt.). 



Information as to the spring-arrival dates is by no means voluminous. In some 

 localities they appear on the breeding grounds early (March 17-25, in northern 

 France), but they do not nest there before the end of April, or in May. Like other 

 diving ducks they may be considered late nesters, although earlier than Scaups, 

 Scoters and some others. In northern Algeria at the end of May and early June 

 many of these ducks were not yet nesting (Zedlitz, 1914). In central Germany 

 clutches were not complete before the middle of May (Baldamus, 1870). W. Eagle 

 Clarke (1895) found several pairs nesting in the delta of the Rhone in the third week 

 in April. In western Asia Poliakov (1916) found young birds as early as late May on 

 the Irtysh River. 



The nest is always placed on or close to the edge of the water, in thick reeds. One 

 nest described in Naumann (1896-1905) as exceptional was sixteen to twenty steps 

 from the water. It had the general appearance of a Coot's nest, bulky and roughly 

 constructed of flags or rushes, lined with down. Islands seem to be favorite locations. 

 W. Eagle Clarke (1895) describes one nest in Provence that was in the center of a 

 dense mass of purslane six feet from the water and was reached by a covered lane 

 two feet in length, worked through the scrub where it rested on the soil. The nest 

 itself was placed on the ground, and consisted of a broad ring of down with a few 

 short dry tamarisk twigs. The nest-down is grayish but larger, darker and more 

 sooty than the Mallard's. It is said to resemble closely that of the Eider. 



The normal clutch consists of six to ten eggs, the average being about eight. 

 Clarke (1895) has reported a clutch numbering as many as seventeen, the work of 



