258 THE RED-CRESTED POCHARD. 
Jerdon, quoting a writer in the Indian Sporting Review, 
says that “during the day they are constantly on the move, 
now pursuing one another, now screaming, all up at once, 
then down again.” This, however, I have never observed, 
except on very cold, or dull, cloudy days. On bright sunny days 
—and we have few but these during the season in which they 
visit us—their habit is to feed energetically, from about 8 to 
10 A.M., and from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. to rest either on some 
shallow or floating in deep water, half the flock often asleep, 
well out in the middle of the lake or stream. Now and again 
there may be a little skirmishing and play, or washing and 
diving, accompanied by a few calls and a little chattering; 
but during the midday hours, quiescence is their characteristic. 
On the whole, taking them all round, they are perhaps the 
most troublesome* fowl to work, as they are certainly, in my 
opinion, the handsomest that we have much to do with in India ; 
and there is no species that I have more often watched or 
more closely studied. 
I have sometimes found them out of the water, on the land 
a yard or two from the water’s edge, grazing and picking up 
small shells and insects, and they then walk better than the 
other Pochards ; but it is rare to see them thus, though from 
the frequency with which they are caught along with Gadwall 
and other ducks by fall-nets on baited sward, it is probable that 
during the night they more readily leave the water. 
Their call-note, not very often heard by day unless they are 
alarmed, is quite of the Pochard character—not the quack of 
a duck, but a deep grating “urr.’ Occasionally the males only, 
I think, emit a sharp sibilant note—a sort of whistle, quite 
different from that of the Wigeon, and yet somewhat remind- 
ing one of that. I have never seex them do this, but I have 
on two or three occasions heard the note from parties of them 
when no other fowl were near; and once, when there were 
only drakes, and I have repeatedly heard it at night, and 
once by the Ana Sagur at Ajmere, three ducks came over 
me in the dark, uttering this sound, and two that I dropped 
proved to be Red-crests. 
As a rule, these birds are always in mixed flocks, and I 
have never seen any party consisting only of females; but I 
have, perhaps a dozen times in my life, come across flocks, 
(one of them numbering fully fifty individuals) composed of 
adult males only. 
I have forgotten to notice their very characteristic wing 
rustle, which, though resembling that of the Pochard, is louder 
* Capt. E. A. Butler, no mean authority on such matters, remarks : ‘* The Red- 
crested Pochard is another of those wary birds that severely tries the sportsman’s 
patience, taking wing on the slightest indication of danger, and flying up and 
down the tanks invariably out of gunshot. It is not very common, but occurs on 
most of the large tanks.” 
