SHOVELLER — PINTAIL DUCK. 199 



THE SHOVELLER. V ^ ^ 



Spatula chjpeata. 



The Shoveller, which breeds in some parts of Eng-land, is 

 an occasional visitor to Oxfordshire, but there is no evidence 

 of its having" remained to nest in the county. The late Rev. 

 T. W. Falcon, however, believed that a pair, the male of 

 which was shot on Otmoor in the spring- of 1880, intended to 

 breed there. He writes, — ' The man who shot the Shoveller 

 professes not to remember the date. He thinks it was in 

 March, or says so ; I fancy it was later and in close time ' 

 (m lit.). The same man shot a bird of the year in the same 

 place in the October following'. 



The Messrs. Matthews stated that a few specimens were 

 g-enerally killed during- the season [Zoologist, ]). 2539). Upon 

 Otmoor, whence Mr. A. H. Macpherson received a drake shot 

 on the 12th November, 1886, the Shoveller is a well-known 

 winter visitor (T. W. Falcon in lit.) ; while on the uj^per Isis, 

 in the neig-hbourhood of Standlake, it occurs every winter 

 (Warner, MS.). An adult male in the Oxford Museum is 

 labelled ' Cassington.'' It is naturally of less common occur- 

 rence in the north of the county, but a female was shot on the 

 Cherwell, near A^iiho station, in December, 1881, and I 

 observed an immature bird upon Clattercote Reservoir, on the 

 loth October, 1885. 



The local name for the Shoveller on Otmoor is ' Spoonbill,^ 

 and it is somewhat curious to remark that in the 16th and 

 17th centuries the true Spoonbill [Platalea lencorodia) was 

 known as the ' Shovellard^ [vide Stat. 25 Henry VIII, cap. 1 1, 

 and Zoologist, 1877, p. 428). 



THE PINTAIL DUCK. \\'^ 



Dafila acuta. 

 The Pintail is a scarce winter visitor to Otmoor and 

 the Thames district. In the former locality, in recent years, 

 one was shot in November, 1880, another (one of three seen) 



