In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 95 



possession ; but I was dissatisfied as to its origin, and not feeling 

 certain that it was a genuinely wild bird, I exchanged it away for 

 a little Badger cub that I wanted for my collection. They are 

 commonly called the Burrow Duck, from their habit of forming 

 their nest in the sand banks and old rabbit holes that abound on 

 some parts of the coast. They nest yearly in the vicinity of Poole 

 and Christchurch harbours, and they used to be very plentiful in 

 the Bristol Channel, in the neighbourhood of Burnham. I remember 

 in 1861 making an expedition to Brene Down, between Burnham 

 and Weston-super-Mare, in order to obtain some specimens of these 

 birds for stuffing ; and having provided everything necessary for 

 the expedition, I started, with a friend, about 12.30, at midnight 

 intending to reach our destination, which was some miles off, some 

 half-hour before the tide turned in the early morning, when if we 

 had hidden ourselves carefully amid the sand banks we should have 

 stood a chance of obtaining a shot or two as the birds came to feed 

 on the margin of the ebbing tide. We arrived about 2.30, a.m., 

 and found to our chagrin that we had somehow miscalculated the 

 tide, and were an hour or so too late. There were the birds, in 

 numbers, but they were already out of gun-shot from the only 

 available cover ; and though I had two long shots from the rocks 

 above, I was not lucky enough to stop one. I should think there 

 must have been at least some twenty-five couple of old birds there, 

 it being then a very favourite locality for them ; but I do not know 

 whether the alterations and fortifications that have now for some 

 years been erected there have caused them to migrate from their old 

 haunts. 



Spatula Clypeata. " The Shoveller." A nice pair of these birds 

 were killed in our water-meadows here some time ago by the keeper, 

 and are now in the possession of F. M. E. Jervoise, Esq., of Herriard 

 Park. I have not seen or heard anything of them, however, since 

 that date, about 1856. They occur yearly at the mouth of the 

 Avon, and were very plentiful at Christchurch during the winter of 

 1879-80. I saw seven or eight beautiful Drake birds in Hart's 

 shop at that time, all recently set up. Hart tells me he has shot 

 the young flappers at Christchurch in August, and this autumn I 



