Common Pochard 29 
to the last named ; the neck and breast-shield black, with a suffusion of red brown ; belly, 
white ; flanks, vent, thighs, nape, scapulars greyish-brown, finely vermiculated with black ; 
primaries, secondaries, and upper wing, similar to Ferruginous Duck ; wing-coverts grey, 
with broad black edges to the feathers ; under tail-coverts white, like Ferruginous Duck ; 
upper back black and finely vermiculated with grey ; rump, black ; tail and primaries brown, 
with a greyish sheen. Naumann described the hybrid as F. hoineyeri. It has also been 
named F. ferinoides. 
At the meeting of the Zoological Society {P. Z. S,, 1882, p. 134) Dr. P. L. Sclater 
exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Peter Inchbald, a specimen of a hybrid between the Common 
Pochard and the Mallard. It was probably bred in confinement. In the Field, May 27, 
1909, Mr. W. Mackay Wood reports having bred three young hybrids of a similar kind at 
the Lodge, Brinscall, Lancashire. I can record another instance which occurred in the 
summer of 1898, at Reevesby Abbey, near Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, A wild Mallard 
came to a small pond there and paired with a pinioned female Common Pochard. Five 
young were hatched and reared — three males and two females — and four had been given 
away when I saw the last, a male, at Reevesby, in August 1899. The bird was exactly 
intermediate between the two species. Speaking of these hybrids bred at Brinscall, Mr. 
Wood says: — 
"In general appearance they are quite unlike any duck I know. In shape they take after the 
mallard, but are smaller and rounder. In the drake the bill is like the pochard's ; the head and upper 
part of the neck are a glossy greenish-black, which in some lights is strongly shot with red ; the white 
neck-ring of the mallard is absent ; the breast, under parts, tail, and tail-coverts resemble the mallard, 
whilst the upper parts of the body take after the pochard, except for a well-defined wing bar and the 
absence of curl in the middle tail feathers. The ducks are of a dull dusky brown, dark on the top and 
light underneath, without the dark markings of the wild duck. In both sexes the irides are brown, the 
legs and feet dull orange, the webs greyish-black, and the tail contains sixteen feathers." 
The Common Pochard has also bred with the Sheld-Duck in confinement, of which 
L.T. C. {Field, Dec. 30, 191 1) says : — 
" The following are the particulars of an interesting hybrid hatched at Christ Church Park, Ipswich, 
last year, 19 10, and is now in good plumage. The male parent is a common pochard, the female a 
common sheld-duck. The hybrid greatly favours the pochard, but is larger and longer and much more 
graceful. Colour of head, blackish chestnut ; eyes, dark brown ; neck and breast, lighter chestnut ; belly 
and sides, light pencilled grey ; back, darker pencilled grey ; primaries, dark grey ; tail, nearly black ; 
vent and under tail-coverts, yellow ; bill, black, slighdy curved upwards ; feet, slatey." 
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