THE POCHARD OR DUN-BIRD. 249 
be made in the standing net as of the Pochard ; but the large 
flocks always frequent waters in which, owing to their depth, 
it is difficult and troublesome to set the net, and difficult to work 
the fowl up to it, as you must have canoes, and birds will not 
work as well in front of these as they will when before men 
and buffaloes, and then at the flush at least half the Pochards 
dive (unless the night be very dark); and, though they get 
meshed, it is a tremendous job getting them out of the net, © 
which, moreover, thirty or forty of them in a lump below water, 
tear to shreds; so that, though I have twice made gigantic 
“takes,” I generally concluded not to undertake the business, 
but to stick to shallow jhils. 
They swim very rapidly and gracefully ; as a rule, rather deep 
in the water, but at times, especially, when a lot are at play 
together, for a minute or two quite high as if barely resting on 
the water. They are very playful, and skirmish about together, 
chasing each other, scuttling along on the surface one moment, 
out of sight the next. They are grand divers ; like all the 
Pochards they have the hind toe more webbed (though this is 
slightly less marked in this species and the White-eye than in 
the Scaup, &c.) than the true Ducks and Teal have, and it is 
doubtless partly this which makes them such good divers. 
I think that they chiefly feed by night, for which purpose all 
birds, spending the day in rivers and bare-shored lakes, leave 
these at night for more suitable feeding grounds, and one 
often drops a brace or two of “old Pokers” flight shooting. But 
they feed during the day also when in any of their favourite 
haunts, and you may see them for an hour together diving for 
the roots and submerged stems and foliage of all kinds of 
aquatic plants. With us, in Upper India, their food is, according 
to my experience, almost entirely vegetable; I have found a few 
insects, grubs, worms, tiny frogs and a good many shells in 
their stomachs, but seeds, flower buds, shoots, leaves, stems and 
roots of water plants, together with fine pebbles and sand, of 
which there is always a considerable quantity, have always con- 
stituted the bulk of the contents of these ; and it is perhaps in 
consequence of this that, as a rule, when killed inland in India, 
they are excellent eating. Not so always those killed on the 
coast. A pair I shot in Kurrachee Harbour turned out rank and 
far from good eating ; and a third, shot a few days later, proved to 
have fed chiefly on marine plants, small crustacea and mollusca. 
Occasionally, when in small parties, they are to be seen paddling 
about in shallow, weedy corners of jhils, along with and just 
like Gadwall, Teal and Shovellers ; but normally they keep in 
large flocks, and “288 in pretty deep water when feeding in the 
day time. 
It is difficult to say whether they should be called tame or 
shy. Naturally I think they are the former. At the Madho 
Jhil in Sindh, where no sportsman, European or Native, had 
HI 
