Ferruginous Duck 35 
inhabited by the Common Pochard is the true home of this neat little duck. They are 
distinctly freshwater birds that love quiet pools overgrown with sedge and reeds, and 
do not seem to stay long on lakes where the banks are bare or the bottoms are not muddy 
and full of vegetation. Lakes with abundant submerged growth, with occasional open 
expanses of deeper water, are much to their taste, especially those with small green islands 
and quiet bays. Like all southern species, they dislike cold and rough winds, and in Ger- 
many and Hungary they resort much to deep ditches connecting areas of water. Never- 
theless they do not like ponds which are too heavily overgrown, but rather those which 
have sheltered open spaces to which they can retreat if disturbed. They will frequent 
estuaries of brackish water, but have no liking for the sea, although they may be noticed 
there on rare occasions. By nature the Ferruginous Duck is not shy, and frequents pools, 
in the immediate neighbourhood of villages. In Hungary they may frequently be seen on 
small lakes round whose sides the peasants are working. 
" They appear," says Naumann, "in our part of the world (Germany) about the end of March in 
small companies of from 5 to 8, and then immediately betake themselves to the breeding places. 
In September they are already beginning to appear again in small family parties, and in October they 
assemble on the larger stretches of water in rather bigger flocks, in order, at the end of this month, or (in 
good weather) at the beginning of Novemher, to forsake our country and exchange it for a milder climate. 
They seldom wait for frost and snow, and even in mild winters we ourselves have never seen one 
which has remained behind : but it is said that they have been come upon, spending the winter at open 
places on the lakes of Bavaria and Austria, and on some in Switzerland, and this is a certified fact of 
(lakes) of S. Hungary and the ' Plattensee.' They fly almost always in irregular flocks, and make their 
extended journeys at night, and in this particular resemble the species nearest akin to them." 
Mr. Stuart Baker (Indian Duchs, p. 229) gives testimony to the fact that the Ferru- 
ginous Duck is generally found on sheets of water similar to those frequented by the 
Common Pochard, but shows that on migration they may be found almost anywhere : — 
" The kind of water," he says, " preferred by the Pochard is also that which forms the favourite resort 
of the White-eyed Pochard. I have, however, found them in all and any sort of water. Wandering 
up and down the hill streams, clear deep pools and rushing torrents of shallow water following one another 
in rapid succession, I have often disturbed small flocks of the White-Eye ; and I have equally often found a 
pair or a small flock in the very dirtiest and smallest pools of stagnant water. It is also found in sea- 
water, vide Sinclair, who says that it is ' the sea-duck of the Alibag Coast,' where they ' ride generally just 
outside the surf, where they were safe from disturbance from passing boats.' 
" Where there were wide stretches of water, clear here and there in patches, but for the most part 
covered with water-plants, and with shores thickly lined with reeds, &c., White-Eye assembles in vast 
numbers, but not in very large flocks. These (the flocks) may number anything between half a dozen 
and over fifty, and even of the latter number there will be but few. Then, again, the birds lie so scattered 
and far apart that they keep rising in ones and twos, giving the impression that they are only consorting 
in pairs or very small flocks, and of course many single birds and pairs are really met with." 
This bears out the fact that Ferruginous Ducks seldom, if ever, mass in large numbers, as 
other species do, and even when very abundant, as they are in India in winter and Kashmir in 
the spring, there is always the tendency of large fliocks to break up into small parties or even • 
pairs. My brother, Mr. Geoffrey Millais, who has resided for ten years in Kashmir, and has 
witnessed extraordinary flights of these birds both before and after the breeding season 
there, says that this habit of splitting up is the reason why such great bags of these ducks 
