COMMON POCHARD 161 



presented a good target. He says that the best chance is to put the flock up once 

 you are near enough and then take them when they rise. Sometimes Pochards can 

 be sailed upon down-wind and good shots obtained. Millais speaks of this method in 

 England and Hume used it in India. They are also taken by flight-shooting at dusk 

 or by driving them out of a favorite pond and posting guns to intercept them on their 

 return. 



Behavior in Captivity. Pochards are among the easiest of the diving ducks to 

 keep under artificial conditions. They become adapted to grain diet very readily, 

 are hardy, and soon become tame. Wild specimens are not easily induced to breed, 

 but once a hand-reared stock has been developed the problem becomes a compara- 

 tively easy one. Among Mr. Wormald's splendid collection of breeding water-fowl 

 in Norfolk in the spring of 1922, the Pochard was well represented. Like most of 

 his ducks they were extremely tame, noisy and demonstrative, and so oblivious of 

 the presence of a stranger that they would dive for food almost at one's feet. The 

 females were nesting all over a boggy piece of land close to the pond and would allow 

 one to stroke them or even to lift them partly from the nest. Mr. Wormald told me 

 that one year he had eight females nesting and only five males for them to mate 

 with. In spite of this the eggs of all the females were fertile, which shows that under 

 certain conditions polygamy may take place. Nevertheless, polygamous tendencies 

 are certainly rarer among diving ducks in captivity than they are among the com- 

 moner surface-feeders, such as the Mallard and Carolina Duck. 



Among Mr. Wormald's stock the earliest date of egg-laying was April 23, which is 

 somewhat later than the dates for the White-eyed Pochard but considerably earlier 

 than those for the Tufted Duck. 



Unlike some other diving ducks all or nearly all Pochards breed during their first 

 spring. This is certainly not the case with all Tufted Ducks, Red-crested Pochards 

 or Rosy -bills. 



Pochards have always been kept in collections of water-fowl and appear in the 

 earliest lists of the London Zoological Gardens. Although they do not seem to have 

 bred there, they have done so at Knowsley and in Kew Gardens, as well as on the 

 ponds of many leading English water-fowl fanciers. 



Wild-caught birds used to be sold in England for £1 to £l 10s. the pair (Hub- 

 bard, 1907). The present price for good hand-reared stock is £3 the pair, and for 

 wild-caught birds a little over £2. Here in America they are not often offered for 

 sale and even in pre-war days would bring as high as $25.00 the pair, though this 

 was probably top price. The New York Zoological Society has procured them for as 

 little as $5.00 each. 



As a rule Pochards live longer in captivity than other diving ducks. Twenty-one 

 specimens in the London Gardens lived on the average five years, the maximum 



