384 
POCHARD. 
grey ; back and scapulars cinereous and dusky, disposed in small undu- 
lated lines ; smaller wing- coverts darker ; greater coverts and secondary 
quill-feathers blue-grey ; primary quills dusky ; rump and under tail- 
coverts black ; under part of the body dusky-white, marked with nu- 
merous small dusky lines, darkest at the vent ; the tail consists of four- 
teen feathers, dusky, dashed with ash colour ; legs lead colour ; feet the 
same, very broad. 
The female differs in having the head and neck ferruginous-brown ; 
breast and belly dusky-white, clouded with brown ; under tail coverts 
dusky and white ; in other respects like the male, but the markings 
less distinct. 
*This species, though sometimes taken in the decoy pools in the 
usual manner, are by no means welcome visitors ; for by their continual 
diving, they disturb the rest of the fowls on the water, and prevent 
their being enticed into the tunnels : and we are assured that they are 
not to be decoyed with the other ducks. Pochards, like other wild 
fowl, were taken in much greater abundance formerly, and in a very 
different manner. 
The method practised, as we have been informed from good autho- 
rity, was something similar to that of taking woodcocks. Poles were 
erected at the avenues to the decoy, and after a great number of these 
birds had collected for some time on the pool, (to which wild fowl 
resort only by day, and go to the neighbouring fens to feed by night,) 
a net was at a given time erected by pullies to these poles, beneath 
which a deep pit had previously been dug ; and as these birds, like the 
woodcocks, go to feed just as it is dark, and are said always to rise 
against the wind, a whole flock was taken together in this manner ; for 
when once they strike against the net, they never attempt to return, 
but flutter down the net till they are received into the pit, from whence 
they cannot rise, and thus we are told twenty dozen have been taken 
at one catch. 
The tracheal labyrinth belonging to the male of this species is (as 
Dr. Latham observes) something like that of the scaup, but shorter, 
and of nearly the same diameter throughout. The drum-like labyrinth 
is more round on the upper side, but crossed with a small bony parti- 
tion, as in that bird. The bony box of which the other portion con- 
sists, is scarcely elevated on this side, and on the other much less so 
than in the scaup ; it likewise forms an obtuse angle with the rest of 
the trachea, but in the scaup it does not deviate from a continuation of 
a straight line, though forming a considerable enlargement. 
It has been said that this species will not live in confinement ; on 
