150 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



direct from Yarmouth and other parts of the coast to 

 London, the beauty of the cock shoveler, when in per- 

 fect plumage, brings it more generally into our bird- 

 stuffers' hands or the local markets, as a "specimen" 

 than as an article of food. 



Until the winter of 1862-3 I had always considered 

 this species as a rarity in winter, having met with it 

 only two or three times in December, and then not in 

 "hard weather," but since then I have known adult 

 males occur during intense frost, both in December 

 and January, more likely, I think, to be birds which 

 have come down to us from more northern localities* 

 than our summer residents still lingering on the coast. 

 Our " home breds," as a rule, leave their inland haunts 

 in autumn ; and at Blakeney, Mr. Dowell has met with 

 them in the salt marshes in October, the southward 

 migration commencing probably about the close of that 

 month ;f their return, in spring, commencing usually 

 with the second week in March. The only bird (an old 

 male) I ever saw in February, was killed about the 

 middle of the month on Ludham Broad ; and the weather 

 being extremely mild at the time had probably some- 

 thing to do with its early appearance. 



* Mr. Cordeaux gives instances of this species breeding in 

 Yorkshire, Mr. Hancock (" Birds of Northumberland and Durham," 

 pp. 150, 151), of its having done so in Northumberland, and Mr. 

 K. Gray ("Birds of the West of Scotland"), of its occurrence, 

 both in summer and winter, in the north of Scotland. St. John, 

 also, described it as not only breeding but remaining all winter 

 at the loch of Spynie on the Moray Firth, and though apparently 

 not known in either the Orkney or Shetland Isles, stragglers from 

 some of the above localities may visit us during a prolonged frost. 



f Colonel Irby (" Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar") speaks 

 of the shoveler as mostly arriving on the Spanish side of the straits 

 in October ; and Mr. Dresser (" Birds of Europe") gives various 

 authorities for the southward migration of this species occurring on 

 the continent in November. 



