BIRDS 273 



his catalogue of the animals of Cumberland — but T. C. Hey- 

 sham knew the bird. He recorded two female Shovellers shot 

 near Sebergham in September 1831, and a male shot on Burgh 

 marsh the same year, with the comment : ' The Shoveller is a 

 very rare bird in this part of the county. 5 He afterwards met 

 with additional specimens, but his contemporary, Dr. Stanley, 

 could not include this duck in his list of birds found in the 

 neighbourhood of Whitehaven, though he had met with the 

 Pintail, which he described as rare. The late Captain Kinsey 

 Dover informed me that he had known the Shoveller to occur 

 as a winter visitant in the Derwentwater district. It occurs 

 from time to time near Edenhall, where specimens were obtained 

 in former years by the late baronet, just as R. Eaine shot a 

 drake in change in October 1886, and a bird in female plumage 

 in October 1888. A full dressed drake shot near Allonby some 

 years ago is preserved by John Dawson, but the species is rare 

 west of Silloth, occurring regularly only between Silloth and 

 Gretna, and seldom at any distance from the coast-line. To 

 this district the Shoveller is principally a spring visitant on 

 passage to its breeding grounds. In March and April the 

 Shoveller appears annually either on one of the loughs or on 

 the salt marshes, when a few pairs linger with us until the end 

 of April, and then take leave, returning in early autumn and 

 frequenting our creeks aud salt marshes, in some cases delaying 

 their final departure until the first break of frost. It is very 

 delightful to study the actions of this graceful bird ; indeed a 

 constant pleasure attaches to the renewal of our acquaintance- 

 ship on its return from the south in the spring of the year. In 

 1890 I saw a pair of Shovellers newly arrived on Monkhill 

 Lough on the 13th of April, when the drake was in almost 

 perfect nuptial dress, a very white bird and a real beauty. 

 Merrily they wheeled aloft, easily out-distancing the Wigeon 

 with their short rapid wing-strokes and buoyant flight. After- 

 wards they dropped quietly into the sedge beds, and there 

 remained undisturbed save for pugnacious and noisy Coots. I 

 have never seen the Shoveller here in pairs before the com- 

 mencement of March, nor have I ever seen a greater number 

 than half-a-dozen pairs swimming on the water at one time, 



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