14G BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



numbered on the broads by the garganej. On the 

 Yare, between Surlinghain and Rockland, a few pairs 

 may be found annually, in spring and summer, at a 

 retired and well preserved spot, known as "Rudd's 

 waters," situated in the marshes between the two broads ; 

 and on the opposite side of the river, as recently as 

 the autumn of 1850, young shovelers were killed with 

 other flappers in the marshes at Strumpshaw, no doubt 

 bred on what was once a broad, though now almost en- 

 tirely grown up. Rockland, as an "open" broad, a.flbrds 

 no protection, and, although of late years I have seen 

 shovelers on Surlingham Broad in May and June, and 

 the young birds have been shot there in autumn, the 

 marshmen have always doubted their nesting nearer 

 than the locality I have mentioned.^ Fifteen or twenty 

 years ago, I think it probable that they bred occasionally 

 on the drier marshes round the broad itself, as I can 

 remember, on more than one occasion, as I pulled on 

 to the broad in the early morning, watching the low 

 sweeping flight of a cock shoveler, repeated again and 

 again, over some rough tussocky ground lying between 

 the broad and the river ; agreeing well with the 

 following description of its habits in the breeding 

 season, contained in a recent letter from Mr. Beverley 

 Leeds : " the male shovelers get to the hens at night, 

 and if put up early in the morning, almost always, in 

 flying round, pass low over the spot where the female 

 is sitting." At that time, however, I was under the 

 impression that their nests were placed in the almost 

 inaccessible swamp. On the Bure and its tributaries I 

 have evidence of its still nesting in the vicinity of many 

 of the broads in that neighbourhood, and under the pro- 

 tection of a "close time" Act sufficiently stringent in its 



'•* Mr. Robert Pratt informs me that in the smnmer of 1877, 

 shovelers were bred on this Broad, which he considers a very 

 unusual circumstance. 



