Birds. 5757 



reared their young family. Mr. Adams, the proprietor of these pleasure grounds, says 

 that forty or fifty people had taken tea on that table during the three weeks that the 

 nest must have been there, and had not discovered it ; and that the table had been 

 moved to the lawn and back several times, yet the parent birds did not desert it. The 

 birds found an entrance to the drawer through a hole in the bottom, and through this 

 hole they had carried all the moss found in the drawer." — From the Sussex Express, 

 June 6, 1857. — Communicated by the Rev. Arthur Hussey. 



The Shoveller (Anas clypeata) breeding in Dorsetshire. — 1 have great pleasure in 

 recording this bird as having bred in the county of Dorset. Some few weeks since, 

 when trout -fishing with Mr. Williams on his manor at Ilsington, we disturbed, some 

 way from us, a bird, which the keeper informed me was a wigeon. Mr. Williams 

 also informed me that his keeper had found the nest, and had brought him two of the 

 eggs (leaving the rest to be hatched), and that he had placed them in the Dorset 

 County Museum. The disturbed bird circled round us, at a great altitude, for at least a 

 quarter of an hour, and whistled occasionally the same notes as the wigeon, which, 

 added to the smallness of the bird and the quantity of white in the plumage, led me 

 to believe that it was a wigeon, and so I marked it in my note-book, but with a query 

 appended to it. I always use great circumspection in making use of gamekeepers' 

 information respecting species; but my own observations in this case induced me to 

 believe that he was right, and that it was in fact a wigeon. This bird was flushed 

 several times during the day, and each time its flight was similar. Some way further 

 down, and in a bend of the river, we noticed the female bird with a brood of young; 

 but we were so far off that I could not identify the species. On the 25th of June my 

 friend Mr. Williams, who had been " flapper shooting,'' kindly sent me, amongst other 

 wild fowl, a wigeon. On examination this proved to be a female shoveller, and I 

 have no doubt whatever but that, instead of being wigeons, they were shovellers that he 

 and I saw on a previous occasion. Any keeper in this part of Dorset who has a river 

 and water-meadows in his manor will tell you that both wigeon and teal breed with 

 him. This only shows how very careful we should be in satisfying ourselves before we 

 admit a species into the Fauna of a county, or, in fact, of a country. In obtaining 

 materials for my ' Fauna of the County of Dorset' I have met with instances where a 

 very different bird was introduced from the one intended. In one list I found the 

 hooded merganser named as having been obtained in Dorset. As this was the only 

 occurrence I had heard of, I wrote to the compiler (one of our first entomologists) 

 respecting it. When he next came to Weymouth I saw him ; he kindly gave me all 

 the information in his power, and the result was the proof, beyond all question, that 

 the hooded merganser of his list was only the tufted duck (Anas fuligula). Another 

 case occurred to me only this week. In a new Guide-Book of Weymouth and Port- 

 land, now publishing, the proprietor had applied to a gentleman in this town to give 

 him a list of marine birds. The list was supplied. Happening to call on the pub- 

 lisher, he asked me to revise the list ; and this I promised to do, and took it home for 

 that purpose. What was my astonishment to find the first bird found on the cliffs of 

 Dorset was Falco gentilis ! The mischief that may accrue to Science from mistakes 

 like these is such that some remedy should be attempted. I think it might be ma- 

 naged if the Linnean and Zoological Societies would take it in hand, and certify of 

 any work that there were no gross inaccuracies. It would in time add to the value 

 of the work, and would obtain favour with the public, and therefore with the author. — 

 William Thompson ; Weymouth, July 5, 1857. 



