them are inhabitants of salt water during a great part of the
year ; and all of them dive freely.
T h e R e d -c r e st e d P ochard or Red-crested Whistling-
Duck, was first noticed as a straggler to the British Islands
by Hunt, who figured in his ‘ British Ornithology,’ ii. p. 333,
a female killed at Breydon, in Norfolk, in July 1818. In
his ‘ List of Norfolk Birds,’ published in 1829, Hunt records
two more shot at Breydon in 1826, and one (now in the
collection of Mr. J. H. Gurney) at Surlingham Broad in
December 1827. In January 1826, a male was shot near
Boston, in Lincolnshire, while feeding on fresh water with
some Wigeons, as recorded by the Author (Zool. Journ.
ii. p. 492). During the same winter several others were
obtained, more than one occurring in the London markets,
and were eagerly purchased for collectors, one being secured
by Mr. Bartlett (Naturalist, iii. p. 420). In January 1844,
an example was obtained at Horsey Mere, near Yarmouth;
and one, taken about the same time, near Colchester, passed
into the Museum of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
A second occurrence at Boston was recorded in 1854. In
February 1867, an adult female was shot at Hickling Broad,
near Yarmouth ; and there are several other specimens in
existence which have been killed in the eastern counties.
Mr. John Hancock mentions a female killed in November
1857, at Fenham Flats, Northumberland.
The female represented by Gould in his ‘ Birds of Europe,’
was in the collection of the Hon. W. T. T. Fiennes, and was
killed out of a flock of eighteen, at Erith, on the Thames.
In February 1845, one was killed at Falmouth, in Cornwall;
and an adult male was obtained at Braunton, North Devon,
in December 1867. G. R. Gray says that one of two reputed
British specimens in our Museum, was presented by Lord
Cawdor, and had been shot at Milford Haven ; and this is,
probably, the example stated by the late Mr. Dix (Zool.
s.s. p. 1678) to have been killed at Stackpole (Lord Cawdor’s
seat), Pembrokeshire.
In Scotland this species has only once been recorded :—a
male in the collection of Sir John Campbell-Orde, and exhibited
before the Zoological Society by Mr. P. L. Sclater, was shot
by Mr. MacDougall, of Lunga, in January 1862, on a freshwater
loch in Argyllshire, where it was in company with
some Goldeneyes (P. Z. S. 1862, p. 163). Before the same
Society, Mr. A. G. More exhibited a male belonging to Sir
R. Payne-Gallwey, shot on the 18th January, 1881, near
Tralee, co. Kerry: the only occurrence up to the present in
Ireland (Zool. 1881, p. 143).
The Red-crested Pochard has not been proved to occur in
Scandinavia; and it is, at most, a rare straggler to Holland,
Belgium, and the northern part of France ; nor are its
visits to the south of the latter country, or to the Swiss
lakes, at all frequent. Even in the Spanish Peninsula this
beautiful Duck can only be considered as a very local species,
almost confined to the lakes of the east side and the Balearic
Islands, all of which are rapidly being drained. In Italy
it is not uncommon, and readers of Willughby’s ‘ Ornithology
’ will recollect that our countryman obtained it more
than two centuries ago in the market at Rome. In the
marshes of Sicily it breeds in some numbers ; it has visited
Malta on migration; Lord Lilford found it common in
winter at Butrinto, Albania; and it occurs rather sparingly
in Greece. It breeds in the valley of the Danube; and in
suitable localities in Southern, Central, and even Northern
Germany; also in Russia, especially in the neighbourhood
of the Caspian. Eastward it is found in summer in suitable
localities in Persia, Western and Eastern Turkestan, and
Kashgaria ; its winter range extending over Northern and
Central India, where the species is comparatively abundant.
Mr. Hume says, that although usually in moderate-sized
flocks of from ten to thirty, yet occasionally on large sheets
of water they are seen in thousands.
In Northern Africa the Red-crested Pochard is of accidental
occurrence in the western part of Morocco; but it
breeds sparingly and is resident on the lakes of Algeria,
where Canon Tristram and Mr. Salvin found its nests. It
appears to be rare in Egypt, neither Capt. Shelley nor
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