GADWALL. 157 



As to the qualities of the shoveler as an article of 

 diet, I can endorse the high encomiums of most authors, 

 and can only imagine them "very inferior eating," as 

 described in Shelley's "Birds of Egypt" (an opinion 

 concurred in by Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., from recent 

 experience in the same country), when killed out of 

 season or in brackish marshes. 



ANAS STREPERA, Linnaeus. 

 GADWALL. 



The Gadwall, though nowhere abundant in comparison 

 with many other species, is apparently a more regular 

 visitant to the coast of Norfolk, during the months of 

 winter and spring, than to any other of our maritime 

 counties, and the fact of its being not uncommon on the 

 opposite shores of Holland* in winter, may account for 

 the majority of specimens, obtained in this county, oc- 

 curring in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth and in the 

 Broad district generally. Mr. Lubbock says of this 

 species (1845), "it is generally to be seen in the Norwich 

 Market once or twice in the winter," and such would 

 probably be the case now were it not that the greater 



* M. Julian Deby, in his interesting notes on the " Birds of 

 Belgium" (" Zool.," 1845, p. 1189), describes this duck as " common 

 on our marshes, rivers, and lakes," arriving with the first frost, and 

 leaving in March and April ; which agrees also with the experience 

 of Baron de Selys Longchamps. 



The extensive range of this species, in Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 and throughout a large portion of Northern and Central America, is 

 exhaustively shown in Dresser's " Birds of Europe," and he quotes 

 Naumann to the effect that in Germany " small flocks of, eight or 

 ten individuals are more often seen than single pairs ; but, on the 

 other hand, as large flocks as from thirty to fifty individuals are 

 more seldom observed." 



