148 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Heigham "Sounds," or tlie broad at Hickling, where 

 an adult male was killed late in Marcli of the same year. 

 Neither Horsey mere, however, nor that chain of broads 

 at Rollesby, Ormesby, and Filby, near Yarmouth, can 

 now be included, I fear, amongst the regular breeding 

 haunts of the shoveler. As regards the latter, although 

 Mr. Frere, of Yarmouth, has ascertained that young 

 shovelers have been shot at Eollesby, of late years, 

 with other flappers, the Eev. C. T. Lucas, of Burgh, 

 is unable to furnish me with any similar evidence 

 respecting other portions of the same waters; whilst 

 Mr. Rising informed me in 1862 (the same year, I 

 believe, that Winterton decoy was closed), that since 

 he had let the shooting on his estate, both this species 

 and the garganey had ceased to nest at Horsey. Mr. 

 Lubbock, in a communication to Yarrell, speaks of 

 having seen two nests there at different times, "placed 

 in a very dry part of the marsh, at a considerable 

 distance from the broad." 



Mr. Fielding Harmer, in some notes kindly supplied 

 me in 1871 on fowl and other birds, observed by himself 

 on Breydon, remarks the scarcity of shovelers both in 

 spring and autumn on those waters of late years. The 

 absence of the young birds at the latter season would be 

 accounted for by the species having ceased to breed in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Yarmouth. 



On the lakes at Gunton, Westwick, Kimberley, and 

 Blickling, all in the eastern division of the county, it 

 appears to be only an occasional visitant with other 

 fowl in spring and autumn, or more rarely still in 

 winter. I have also known it occur in December on 

 the Hempstead ponds, near Holt, where a small decoy, 

 now closed, was formerly worked with great success. 



Yarrell remarks that "the shoveler is to be con- 

 sidered generally as a winter visitor to this country," 

 but my own experience, as regards Norfolk, agrees 



