NOTES. 367 



the peat moors of mid- Somerset more than twenty years ago. 

 The late Rev. Murray A. Mathew, writing on this district, 

 states : "The Shoveler, and perhaps the Garganey, would 

 nest regularly if the gunners would only let them alone. I 

 possess an egg of the Shoveler taken on the North Curry Moor 

 some years ago " (see Zoologist, 1891, p. 93). I have also 

 several notes on the appearance of the Shoveler near Glaston- 

 bury in spring and summer during the last decade of the 

 nineteenth century, under conditions which made it almost 

 certain the birds were breeding in the district. Since the 

 completion of the extensive reservoir at Blagdon, in a Valley 

 to the north of the Mendip Hills, about eleven years ago, 

 the Shov^eler seems to have increased as a breeding- species in 

 the county, or, at any rate, has come more under observation. 

 Donald Carr, the ranger and keeper, informs me that numbers 

 of these birds now breed, and have done so for several years, 

 in the meadows around Blagdon Reservoir. He reports also 

 that two pairs of Tufted Ducks and a pair of Garganey {Quer- 

 quedula circia) nested there in 1910. If there has been no 

 mistake in identification, this is the first record I know of the 

 breeding of the Garganey in Somerset, though it has often 

 been obtained in the county in spring ; and Colonel Montagu, 

 more than a hundred years ago, states that he often received 

 this species from the Somerset decoys in April. 



I have seen literally hundreds of Tufted Duck and Pochard 



on Blagdon Reservoir in winter, but apparently only a few 



pairs of the former species, and none of the latter, remain to 



breed there. F. L. Blathwayt. 



GOOSANDER IN SUSSEX. 



A FINE adult male of the Goosander {Mergus merganser) was 

 obtained at Bodiam, Sussex, on February 27th, 1911, and is 

 now in the Hastings Museum. H. W. Ford-Lindsay. 



LATE STAY OF GOOSANDERS IN CHESHIRE. 



The Goosander {Mergus merganser), a not infrequent winter 

 visitor to the Cheshire meres, has on one or two occasions 

 remained until the third week m March, but in the winter 

 of 1910-1911 a party of birds remained for an excep- 

 tionally long time. From December 3rd to the 17th a 

 brown-headed Goosander was constantly on Tatton Mere, 

 and on the 18 th five were observed by the gamekeeper 

 at Marbury, near Northwich ; by January 8th the number 

 had risen to eight. They were all brown-headed, but, 

 judging from variation in size, the party contained birds 

 of both sexes. They generally fed in the morning, and 



