276 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



few exceptional instances that these birds have been shot in 

 Lakeland, during severe frost. The latest date in the year 

 on which I have myself met with Shovellers was the 11th of 

 December 1890, when I found a party of five birds at Monkhill 

 Lough. The leader of the party was a very white bird, already 

 in the first courting dress ; of the remainder two were females, and 

 two drakes in change, the white feathers fast breaking through 

 upon the breast. When disturbed, they wheeled gracefully round, 

 and alighted in the middle of the water under cover of the sedge 

 banks. Their rapid yet hovering flight was very beautiful. The 

 food of the Shoveller consists of the insects which it obtains in 

 skimming the surface of the water or in the creeks and wet places 

 of the salt marshes, but especially of minute shells, together 

 with a small amount of vegetable matter. T. C. Heysham 

 found a female Shoveller which had been shot at Thrustonfield 

 Lough, to contain an immense number of fresh-water shells 

 recently swallowed, including the glutinous mud-shell (Limneus 

 glutinosus) and the crested valve-shell (Valvata sjpirorhis). I 

 dissected two Shovellers, shot in April 1889, and sent to Mr. 

 Mackenzie. They proved to be full of minute shells, together 

 with fibres of a vegetable character. The Rev. Hilderic 

 Friend, F.L.S., kindly examined these shells for me. He 

 decided that they were referable to Hydrobia ulvce, mixed with 

 two species of Foraminifera, viz., Polystomella crista, and P. 

 umbellicata. A young Shoveller, shot at the beginning of 

 August, had dieted in the same way. I extracted from its 

 throat several shells and some fragments of pond-weed. 



PINTAIL. 



Dafila acuta (L. ). 



The Pintail is a decidedly uncommon duck in Lakeland, 

 though a few specimens visit our estuaries every winter. Mr. 

 Threfall writes : ' I never shot a Pintail at Morecambe, although 

 I did so every year on Kibble.' Nor does Mr. Sharpe include 

 this species among the fowl which he has shot, during a long 

 experience, in Morecambe Bay ; a pair, however, were shot 

 there in the early spring of 1884. Moreover, Hutton, the old 



