134 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



be of this species in private collections, have proved 

 only large and strangely coloured varieties of the com- 

 mon marsh duck. A fine adult male, however, shot at 

 Snettisham, near Lynn, on the 26th of March 1869, 

 as recorded in the " Zoologist," p. 1910, and I think 

 in the " Field " at the same time, was subsequently 

 ascertained to have been an escaped bird, belonging to 

 Mr. J. H. Coldham, of Anmer. Mr. Coldham had pur- 

 chased a pair of these birds in London, which had come 

 from Russia, but the female died shortly after, it was 

 supposed from the operation of pinioning. The male, 

 therefore, had only the wing feathers cut, and when 

 these were renewed after the moult, the bird, restless 

 from the loss of its mate, took to flight, and had been 

 missed nearly a week before it met with its death on 

 the sea shore at Snettisham. The above satisfactorily 

 accounted for the perfect state of its plumage when sent 

 me from Lynn for identification. 



ANAS CLYPEATA, Linn^us. 

 THE SHOVELES. 



If the broads and meres of Norfolk had not been 

 such a terra incognita to the earlier writers on British 



Rev. W. B. Clarke, in the " Mag. Nat. Hist.," vol. vii., p. 151. "A 

 ferruginous duck or ruddy goose {Anas rutila, Fauna Suecica) was 

 shot a few days since at Iken, near Orford. It is in the possession 

 of Mr. Manning, chemist, Woodbridge (' Ipswich Journal, Jan. 

 11th, 1834), W. B. C. [See vi., 141.]" On turning to vol. vi., 

 p. 141, of the " Mag. Nat. Hist.," I find a note on a pair of ferru- 

 ginous ducks killed near Orford, plainly showing that this species 

 of duck, and not the ruddy sheld drake, was referred to in Mr. 

 Clarke's communication. 



One is stated by Mr. Fenwick Hele, in his " Notes about Alde- 

 burgh," to have been seen in 1864, " in company with several 

 common sheldrakes, near Blackstakes." 



