174 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



formerly looked upon as a rare bird in England, and 

 can hardly be called very common at present, but 

 from the original introduction upon one of the meres 

 in West Norfolk of a pair of pinioned birds some 

 thirty-five years ago, and the protection afforded to 

 them and their descendants by their owner and 

 adjoining proprietors, aided no doubt by the attrac- 

 tions of the locality to wild Gadwalls, the species 

 has become well established there and breeds in very 

 considerable numbers. I quote these details from 

 Mr. H. Saunders's ' Manual,' but they have in effect 

 been confirmed to me by Lord Walsingham, on whose 

 Norfolk property more Gadwalls are probably annually 

 bred than in the whole of the remainder of Great 

 Britain. In Ireland the Gad wall is tolerably common, 

 and it is not infrequent, as I am informed by my friend 

 Col. Trby, in certain islands of the Hebrides. My 

 personal acquaintance with this species is chiefly con- 

 fined to Southern Europe during the winter months, 

 but we found it nesting in the marshes of the lower 

 Guadalquivir in small numbers in May. We used 

 to shoot a good many Gadwalls in the winter months 

 in Epirus, and it is also very common during cold 

 weather in Sardinia, Sicily, and Tunis ; we generally 

 found it in freshwater pools and swamps, often in 

 flooded woods and thickets. It is certainly specially 

 addicted to thick covert, and therefore one of the 

 easiest to approach of the Duck family. I never met 

 with it in large flocks till the end of February, when 

 the scattered parties had no doubt gathered together 

 for their northward migration; we often came upon 

 small parties in the low-lying coverts of Epirus that 

 we w^ere beating for Woodcocks, but the majority of 

 those that I killed in that country were obtained by 



