THE SHOVELEE. 145 



neiglibourliood. Further to the south and west they 

 are certainly not resident now, and, from enquu'ies 

 made on the spot by Mr. Alfred Newton some twenty 

 years ago, it seems doubtful whether this or any 

 other kind of " half fowl" — as any species of duck, 

 not the common wild duck, is termed in Norfolk — bred 

 in the " fens " about Hockwold and Feltwell, even when 

 their physical aspect justified the name they still retain. 

 One other haunt, however, of the shoveler on this side 

 of the county, but at a considerable distance to the 

 north and west, is Eoydon fen, near Lynn, where, as Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney, jun., was informed by Mr. Burlingham, it 

 bred as recently as 1872, and I have no reason to doubt 

 its continuing to do so. From thence, passing eastward 

 along the entire coast line to Winterton and Yarmouth, 

 the Holkham marshes are perhaps the only locality 

 where the shoveler may still be met with as a resident 

 species, now that almost every decoy is closed or entirely 

 done away with. Here, as Lord Leicester informs me, 

 a good many fowl are reared every year, and shovelers, 

 he believes, amongst others,* but he does not allow these 

 grounds to be disturbed during the breeding season. 

 The lake at Holkham affords no shelter for nesting 

 purposes, vdth the exception of three small islands, 

 which are always taken possession of by the Canada 

 geese to the exclusion of everything else. 



Throughout the " Broad " district, as I know from 

 my own observations and those of correspondents, 

 the shoveler is pretty generally distributed during 

 the summer, yet, whilst the garganey, so far as I 

 can ascertain, but rarely breeds on the meres of this 

 county, the shoveler, at the same season, is far out- 



» This seems confirmed by a note in the " Field," of August 29th 

 1874, in which Mr. J. A. Howell states that he shot a young drake 

 shoveler, on the 14th of August of that year, in the Burnham 

 marshes, together with an equally juvenile common mallard. 

 V 



