The Birds of the Midland Lakes and Bogs. 267 



being then estimated at six or seven thousand. Large flights 

 of fresh Wild Ducks arrive in December and January; these 

 are slighter in body and appear tired with their flight, sleeping 

 all day on the banks ; after some weeks they get fat and heavy. 



The Gadwall is recorded to have been shot at Knockdrin, 

 Westmeath. I^ord Castletown informs me that at Granston 

 Manor, in Queen's Co., three specimens have been shot, and 

 Mr. Young says that a few have been seen in winter in his 

 part of the county. 



The Shovei^leR was not known to Thompson as a species 

 breeding in Ireland. There is much reason to think that it 

 has greatly increased since his time, especially of late years. 

 I have met with Shovellers on Castle Irvine mill-dam, on 

 lyough Erne, Lough Key, Lough Iron, ^'Lough Derg, at both 

 ends of the lake, and on the marshes near Granston. It has 

 been stated by the late Sir Victor Brooke to breed at Castle 

 Irvine, by Colonel Cooper in Sligo, by Mr. Levinge and Rev. 

 P. Keating in Roscommon, by Macpherson, the gamekeeper, at 

 Derrycarne in Co. Leitrim on the Shannon, by Mrs. Battersby 

 in Westmeath, and by Collier, the keeper, at Barronston in 

 the same county, by more than one person at Banagher to 

 breed on the Shannon near that town, by Mr. Wood on the 

 Brosna, by Captain Fox in King's Co., by Mrs. Croasdaile in 

 the north of Queen's Co., and by Lord Castletown in the 

 marshes at Granston. It has bred also in several other parts 

 of Ireland. On the 2nd June, 1892, I was on a small island in 

 Lough Derg, when a brood of little flappers rushed from me 

 into the water. The parent duck immediately flew out in 

 front, displaying herself to draw me off. She was a Shoveller 

 with broad bill and pale-blue wing coverts. Mr. Kinahan had 

 long previously shot young Shovellers in the same locality. 

 On the shores of Glen Lough, Westmeath, in 1891, I was shown 

 the nesting-hollow in a tuft of sedge on coarse rushy pas- 

 ture, from which the eggs of a Shoveller, now in Mrs. Battersby's 

 collection, had been taken that season. On Lough Erne I 

 saw a male and female Shoveller, near Devenish, but in other 

 instances males only, leading me to infer that their mates 

 were hatching, or more probably, rearing young. On Grans- 

 ton marshes, on the 14th April, 1893, I saw many Shovellers 

 in pairs, and observed a female fly off from some tussocks of 

 bog-myrtle, among which I found a nesting-hollow, though no 



