THE POCHARD. 
131 
(except sand and gravel) did I find in the course of several years, 
in a number of them dissected, from the beginning of December 
to the end of March.* The shell-fish noticed at p. 130 were 
subsequently found. That Zostera is not a favourite food, is 
evident from their predilection for fresh-water, in which it does 
not grow, and even those killed in Belfast Bay do not contain 
this plant like the brent geese and wigeon, in which we very 
rarely find anything else. Soft green vegetable matter, and 
seeds of various aquatic plants, t are the favourite food of the 
pochard with us. It should be in the highest condition on these, 
but justice, I fear, has not been done to its “ flesh 99 here, the 
market being regularly supplied with wild-fowl of well-known and 
long-established character, as wild ducks, teal, wigeon, and brent 
geese. It is, however, considered the best of the diving ducks. 
In an article on Walkeris f Original/ published in the f Quar- 
terly Review 1 (vol. lv.), there is a good deal said of the weight, 
&c., of different kinds of game and other birds (p, 466). The 
following information, which appears there, I could not resist 
extracting - 
<c The greatest novelty, perhaps, is the pochard, or dun-bird, a species of wild- 
fowl, supposed to come from the Caspian Sea, and caught only in a single decoy 
on the Misley Hall estate, Essex, in the month of January, in the coldest years. 
The mildness of the season kept them away during the winters of 1833-1834 and 
1834-1835 ; hut a few have arrived within the last month (January 1836), and 
were generally admired by those who had the good fortune to become acquainted 
with them. Their flesh is exquisitely tender and delicate, and may almost be said 
to melt in the mouth, like what is told of the celebrated canvas-back duck of 
America ; but they have little of the common wild-duck flavour, and are best eaten 
in their own gravy, which is plentiful, without either cayenne or lemon-juice. Their 
size is about that of a fine wigeon.” — p. 4644 
A taxidermist bas remarked to me tbat as the spring advances, 
* A shooter and bird-preserver, who has killed many of these birds in Belfast 
Bay (generally in company with scaups, and sometimes with tufted ducks), states, 
that the pochards differed from the others in containing vegetable matter, in 
addition to minute mollusca, on which alone the other species had fed. 
f Two pochards, purchased in Belfast market (Nov. 11, 1848) had both crops 
and gizzards entirely filled with oats. One (Jan. 1849) was wholly filled with 
extremely minute seeds, excepting a few small fresh-water bivalve shells of the genus 
Pisidium. 
j: Two mature females of the pochard and scaup, shot in Belfast Bay at the end of 
K 2 
