36 British Diving Ducks 
•can be made, for the birds come to the guns, when driven, in a succession of small parties 
lasting sometimes for hours at a time. All who have seen this bird in its home state that 
it is a very tame species, lingering in the reeds and vegetation after other ducks have left 
and many shots have been fired. Mr. Stuart Baker states (p. 229) that " it gets off the water 
badly, fluttering about and rising very obliquely ; nor does it rise high when well on the 
wing, but generally flies within a few yards of the surface of the water, getting on consider- 
able pace when once fairly away." Captain Shelley states that he has seen flocks of many 
thousands of these ducks on the lakes of Lower Egypt, where the birds rose with a running 
flight when disturbed, striking the water very rapidly with their feet, and making a noise in 
so doing which could be heard at a distance of two miles. All of which is very true, if there 
is no wind. But the few occasions on which I have seen Ferruginous Ducks in flight have 
shown that if there is a slight head-wind no diving duck rises with greater ease or gets 
under weigh more easily or rapidly. As Mr. Bates points out, however, the flight is per- 
formed at a low elevation, and is rapid and scurrying and accompanied by a slight rustling 
sound, all forward movements being performed with much swinging of the body, and dips 
landward to take advantage of every elevation on the land which breaks the wind. Of all 
diving ducks they seem the most disinclined to leave any sheet of water from which they 
have been disturbed, and will swing round and round even a small pond before departing, 
thus giving the gunner many chances to encompass their destruction. But except for the 
sake of collecting a few specimens, it is agreed by gourmands that no diving duck is less 
fit for the table than the Ferruginous Duck. I have tried to eat them twice, and confess 
that the flesh was as rank and unpalatable as others have found it. This is somewhat 
strange, since the birds feed mostly on a vegetable diet akin to that devoured by Common 
Pochards, which are admitted to be amongst the best of table birds. To this there is the 
•exception of Col. Irby's testimony, who maintains that birds killed in Southern Spain were 
far superior to eat than either the Common or the Red-crested Pochards. But tastes always 
differ, and in this respect a duck which is good to eat in one place might be quite unfit for 
human food in another. For instance, the Zostera-it^ Wigeon of the Moray Firth are 
of the highest culinary importance, whilst no man, however hungry, can eat a Wigeon fed 
on the cockles of the Dornoch Firth only a few miles away. 
It is when ducks live on molluscae and fish that they are usually unpalatable. Thus 
in India, where few sportsmen relish this duck, they feed on small fish, caddis grubs, and 
dragon-fly larv^ to a large extent in the hill streams, whilst in Kashmir, where they 
are said to be good to eat, the diet of the Ferruginous Duck on the Willah and other 
lakes is mostly vegetarian. Naumann gives their habitat to be amongst plants of the 
■classes Myriophyllum, Ceratophylhim, Chara, Potamogeton, Stratiotes aloides, Hypocharis 
morsus ranee, Trapa 7tatans, Polygonum amphibium, Holtonia, Selvaila, Lemna, and 
various NymphcEce, and doubtless they eat the young shoots of many of these. 
Their food consists of root-tubers, young shoots, buds and seeds of various water- 
plants, such as grow under water or float on the surface, but, like other freshwater diving 
ducks, they capture quantities of water-insects, small fish, frogs, tadpoles, fish spawn, and 
water-snails. To the last-named they are very partial, and, in keeping these and other ducks 
in confinement, it is well to obtain a good stock by wiring-off colonies so that they may 
breed in large numbers without molestation for the first year at least. Naumann states 
