THE SHOVELER. 139 



STANFORD AND THOMPSON MERES. 

 Strictly preserved, and artificially extended beyond 

 its former limits, Stanford mere, presents a fine sheet 

 of water of about five and thirty acres in extent, lying 

 in the midst of a rich meadow land, with the warren 

 adjoining, on which at some little distance are two or 

 three belts of plantation, where wild ducks, teal, and 

 shovelers, resort for nesting purposes, returning with 

 their young broods to the mere almost as soon as 

 they are hatched. The broom coverts on the heath, 

 though at a considerable distance from the water, 

 have also, I understand, similar attractions for these 

 three species of fowl. Through the kindness of Lord 

 Walsingham, on whose estate both this and the adjoin- 

 ing mere at Thompson are situated, I had the oppor- 

 tunity, on the 8th of June, 1875, of visiting Stanford 

 and making notes on the different species of ducks 

 that frequent its waters, and nothing certainly could be 

 more attractive to fowl, generally, than the shelving 

 margins of the lake, fringed here and there with flags 

 and sedges ; having at one end a thicket of dwarf trees 

 and tangled undergrowth, with a bordering swamp of 

 reeds and rushes; at the other a small island, rich 

 in aquatic herbage and dotted with sallow and other 

 bushes. The keeper informed me that he knew of five 

 shovelers' nests that summer, but the birds had all 

 hatched,* and with the glass I distinguished three pairs 

 on the water, amongst the other fowl, disturbed by the 

 presence of strangers. One hen bird kept persistently 

 near to a large clump of rushes on the further side of 

 the mere, and had good cause, no doubt, in the presence 



Lord Walsingham, writing to Mr. Gould (" Birds of Great 

 Britain") from Merton, in 18G9, says, " not less than eight or ten 

 pairs of shovelers are in the habit of breeding here every year" ; 

 referring, no doubt, both to Stanford and Thompson meres. 

 T 2 



