THE SHOVELLER. 73 



therefore, is not positive. The gizzard exhibited the remains of 

 vegetable matter. Of two other birds killed in the month of 

 January, the gizzard of the one contained vegetable matter of dif- 

 ferent kinds ; the other, only sand, gravel, and fragments of a Lit- 

 torina. One, examined in November, was filled with the remains 

 of vegetable matter, including a number of seeds ; — in a second, 

 looked to this month, were a number of the univalve shell, Ris- 

 soa ulvce, and a full-grown Littorina neritoides, in addition to 

 which were fragments of stone, as there were in all the others. 

 The contents of one, procured in Wexford market in this month 

 (and examined by Mr. J. Poole), were similar to those in the last 

 bird. The shoveller has been seen on the fresh-water at Caledon, 

 county Tyrone. 



On calling, in the month of March, 1833, at two bird-pre- 

 servers' in Dublin, I found that one had just received an adult 

 male shoveller, and the other, two fresh specimens, including 

 an old male. When in this city, in the same month of the 

 following year, Mr. Glennon informed me -that he had preserved 

 seven or eight of these birds during the winter just then past, all of 

 which had been taken in a decoy. Down to the present period 

 (1850), one or two pair can, at any time during the season, be 

 procured in a decoy in a midland county, whence the birds are 

 sent to Dublin. 



In August 1836, Mr. W. S. Wall stated, that he procured shovel- 

 lers every winter in the Dublin market, and that in the preceding 

 season, he had purchased about eight or nine : in the winter of 

 1837-38, several fresh specimens were brought to him on sale, 

 the earliest on the 12th of October — in the lirst week of May, 

 1838, a recent adult male was offered to him. A few of these 

 birds appear in Dublin Bay occasionally in winter.^" An indivi- 

 dual, shot on fresh-water in the middle of August, in the north, 

 has already been noticed, and, on the 17th of that month, in 1846, 

 one was sent on sale to Dublin.t These two birds, and the one 

 just mentioned, as obtained in May, suggest that the shoveller 

 may possibly breed in Ireland, as it docs sparingly in England. 

 * Mr. R. J. Montgomery. f Mr. J. Walters, jiin. 



