226 THE BIRDS OF DEVOX. 



or from the Continent, but very few are seen, excepting on the south- 

 west part of our coast, where it is abundant and increasing owing 

 to the Bird Preservation Act. We have now no decoys in the 

 "West Country, in which hundreds of "Wild-fowl are snared every winter, 

 as they are still in some few favoured places in the Eastern Counties ; 

 and, indeed, the Wild Ducks do not visit us in sufficient numbers to 

 render a decoy, if constructed, profitable enough to work. A few pairs of 

 Wild Duck breed by the sides of some of our most remote trout-streams, 

 where we have now and again come across the broods when fishing. 

 Wild Ducks are known to place their nests occasionally in strange sites ; 

 we once found one on the top of a bank, by the side of a dusty road, on 

 the top of a high hill in the Exmoor country, at least a mile from the 

 nearest stream, which was in the valley far below. AVe have known very 

 fair bags of Wild Duck made flight-shooting by the sides of the shallow 

 rush-fringed pools on the Braunton Burrows, where the sportsman, sitting 

 on a plank, placed in the midst of the tall clumps of the spiked rush growing 

 nearly five feet high *, could often obtain a favourable shot at the flocks 

 coming in from the sea to feed, either as they flew past, or after thev had 

 settled on the water, and we have knoMU one keen shot get upwards of a 

 hundred in this manner in the course of a few evenings. 



In severe winters immense flocks of Wild Duck visit the marshes of 

 the Land's End district, according to Mr. Bodd ; while numbers which 

 had been bred in the county assemble in the creeks of Poole Harbour, in 

 July, on the Dorset coast, soon to be shot down or scared away by the 

 gunners. 



Mr. Mansel-Pleydell mentions two decoys in Dorsetshire, one at Abbots- 

 bury, belonging to Lord Dchester, of very ancient date, where about 200 

 birds is the present average take ; and another at Morden, belonging to 

 the Charborough Park estate of Miss Drax, where at one time from 7000 

 to 8000 AVild-fowl were captured in a season, but where none are taken 

 at the present day, the decoy being out of order. In Somerset we never 

 found the Wild Duck very plentiful, either on the peat-moors, where a 

 few pairs probably still nest, or on the coast. 



Gadwall. Clmulelasmus streperus (Linn.). 



A casual winter visitor of very rare occurrence, which has been met 

 with only on the south coast. Dr. Moore records specimens in the collec- 

 tions of Messrs. Drew, Bolitho, and Pincombe, but says it was verv rare 

 (Trans. Plym. Inst. 1S30 ; Mag. Xat. Hist. 1837). One wa* obtained at 

 Plymouth, March 3, 1855 (J. G., ' Xaturalist,' 1855, p. 144; Zool. 1855 

 p. 4705). There are examples in the Torquay Museum from Iviugsbrido^e 

 and the Dart ; and one in the A. M. M. is said to have been obtained at 

 Powderliam, on the estuary of the Exe, in Dec. 1871. This bird was 

 in a stale condition when received in the flesh, and might have been 



* Junciis aci'.tus, a scarce rush, uf which some splendid chnups exist in the Braunton 

 Burrows. 



