364 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



Skenea depressa and Montacuta pwpurea, and about eleven thousand 

 others, making a total of twenty thousand shells in the crop and 

 stomach of a single Shelldrake ! Mr St. John, on the other hand, 

 in writing from Morayshire, speaks of these birds feeding during 

 the summer season on cockles and other bivalves, which they 

 swallow whole a habit probably acquired through the necessity 

 of feeding in great haste during a short absence from their nests 

 at low tide. 



THE SHOVELER. 

 ANAS CLYPEATA. 



THE blue-winged Shoveler, or broad-bill, as this beautiful bird is 

 sometimes called, has repeatedly occurred in the West of Scotland : 

 one a fine male, which I had an opportunity of examining was 

 shot in a small stream near Girvan, in May, 1860; another also 

 a male was shot in Fossil Marsh, near Glasgow, on 24th May, 

 1869; a third the male bird of a pair was killed on the Gryfe, 

 near Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, in the first week of June, 1870. 

 The Shoveler has likewise been met with several times on Loch 

 Lomond, chiefly in severe winters; and a pair male and female 

 were shot on the Cree, in Wigtownshire, in the spring of 1865. 

 Several were killed on the Nith, in Dumfriesshire, in 1850, 1851, 

 and were preserved by Mr Hastings, bird stuffer, Dumfries. 



Some of my Hebridean correspondents have, at various times, 

 sent me word of ducks with broad-bills, but I have never obtained 

 a specimen from the outer islands, nor have I been able to get the 

 species sufficiently authenticated there. Mr Elwes informs me 

 that it is a rare winter visitor in Islay. 



Having seen numbers of Shovelers shot on the Ribble, in 

 Lancashire, early in May, and traced the migratory flight of the 

 species northwards to the Solway Firth, thence in an easterly 

 direction through the counties of Berwick, East Lothian, Fife, 

 Forfar, and Kincardine, to Aberdeen, I conclude that the breeding 

 haunts of the species must lie somewhere to the north-east of the 

 British Islands, and that in migrating northwards along the west 

 coast of England, the flocks are tempted to diverge from their 

 course by the trending of the Solway. A few of the Shovelers 

 which cross the firth probably remain to breed; indeed, in one 



