BIRDS 307 



according to the taste of the steward or cook who kept the 

 accounts, but all evidently referring to the same species. The 

 editor of Lord William's household books has ventured the 

 spicy suggestion that the gravelin is ' a small migratory fish ; 

 commonly reputed to be the spawn [sic] of the salmon.' But he 

 furnishes no explanation for the ' spawn of the salmon ' being 

 entered with purchases of wild-fowl ; the context might fairly 

 have saved him from expressing so hazardous an opinion. We 

 have here the ' Graven/ of which the singular may well have 

 been the ' Grave/ which is equally easily pluralised as Graves 

 or ' Gravyes ' ; while at the same time the ' Graven ' are identical 

 with ' Grevell,' ' Gravelins/ and ' Gravell/ the latter being the 

 identical term applied even to-day to the Goosander by those 

 who are fortunate enough to retain the Cumbrian dialect. It 

 will be thought perhaps by some that the original term ' Gravens/ 

 found in 1612, may have been suggested by the blue-grey 

 mantle of the female Goosander, just as Badgers were sometimes 

 called ' Greys ' from their colour. But be that as it may, the 

 name ' Grevell ' was in use in 1617, and spelt as ' Gravell ' in 

 1623. That it applied to the Goosander is rendered the more 

 probable by the fact that the ' Gravens ' or c Gravelins ' were 

 supplied during the very season at which the Goosander is most 

 frequently killed on the Solway, viz., from the end of October 

 to the end of January. 



Whether or not the Goosander ever bred in the neighbour- 

 hood of Windermere, there can be no doubt as to its occurring 

 in small numbers almost every winter on that sheet of water ; 

 indeed specimens have occurred at one time or another on 

 almost all the principal sheets of water in Lakeland, such as 

 Derwentwater, Loweswater, Ulleswater, Bassenthwaite, Hawes- 

 water, or even on such lesser sheets of water as Whin's Pond, 

 Edenhall. It is not suggested that it occurs in any of these 

 localities except in couples and small parties, nor that it even 

 occurs every winter on any one lake ; though as a matter of 

 fact Haweswater and Windermere are visited annually. But 

 inland the Goosander is widely distributed over the central 

 portions of Lakeland ; if it be absent or nearly so from the fell 

 lands which form our eastern boundary, it is so because the 



