202 NYROCA NYROCA 



These little companies rise successively when put up in sheltered situations afford- 

 ing a chance to make enormous bags. 



Shelley thus describes the departure of a great aggregation from a lake in Lower 

 Egypt (Birket-el-Kurun) on a still day: "When disturbed [they] rose with a running 

 flight, striking the water rapidly with their feet, and making a noise in so doing 

 which could be distinctly heard at a couple of miles distance." 



In the air the wings are said to make a slight rustling sound while the flocks 

 tend to very little regular formation. The white speculum-patch is more conspic- 

 uous in flight than it is in the Tufted Duck, but from all accounts they must be 

 difficult for the novice to tell from the latter species. 



Association with other Species. They are not sociable, and seem distinctly 

 inclined to keep aloof from other sorts of wild-fowl; even single specimens, Nau- 

 mann says, stay by themselves. On the breeding grounds several nests are apt to be 

 found rather close together. There are various notes in the literature which show 

 that they are often found together with other ducks, but many of these mixings are, 

 of course, only accidental. Then they have been noticed with Pochards in Palestine 

 (Tristram, 1884), with Tufted Ducks and Golden-eyes in Macedonia (Harrison, 

 1918), with Pochard and Tufted Ducks near Constantinople (Weigold, 1913), and 

 even with Great Crested Grebes on the Danube (Reiser, 1894). 



Voice. The voice of the male, which is reserved almost exclusively for the 

 breeding season, is a "low wheezing groan which can only be heard at close range" 

 (Millais, 1913). This writer says that the sound is like that emitted by the Common 

 Pochard and that he has heard it occasionally in autumn and winter. Mr. Gerald 

 Legge (Millais, 1913) describes this note in the same way and likens it to that of the 

 Common Pochard saving that it is less loud. I have never heard it myself. Nau- 

 mann, and with him, Millais believe that the male has another note, a coarse korr- 

 korr-korr something like that of the female, but I cannot bring myself to believe 

 this, for none of the other male diving ducks have calls anything like those of their 

 mates. To be more certain on this point I asked Mr. Hugh Wormald if he had ever 

 heard his male White-eyes utter any loud call and his answer was emphatic: that the 

 only note was a low, rather grating wheeze, "the sort of note which is impossible to 

 put into words and difficult to locate when uttered by a bird mixed up with a lot of 

 other ducks." 



The female gives a loud kra-kra-kra or kirr-karr variously described and closely 

 resembling that of the Pochard, although not so loud. 



The trachea, first described and figured by Eyton (1838, p. 63), is that of a typical 

 diving duck. It is six inches long, somewhat enlarged in the middle portion and 

 smaller at both ends. There is a left-sided box at the lower end, partly membranous 

 and partly osseous, looking very much like the type seen in all the Pochards. 



