WIDGEON. 
223 
On January 26th, 1803, when he was only seventeen, 
and was just beginning his sporting career, he describes 
his long and unsuccessful pursuit (in which a hawk also 
took part) after a single specimen at Longparish. 
On January 3rd, 181 5, he notes "prodigious flights " at 
Keyhaven, and again on October 19th, 1836, "a couple of 
widgeon pitched by my pond (at Longparish) before I 
was up, and I sent Buckle with my right barrel that was 
left loaded yesterday, to blow them over, which he easily 
did, and brought them in." 
Wise, writing about i860, mentions that "the fowlers 
round Exbury say that the widgeon too stays to nest," 
but he does not know of any authentic instance. 
Mr. Corbin informs us that he has known of specimens 
being met with in the Forest in summer, and the Hon. 
J. Scott - Montagu remarked that a pair remained at 
Sowley Pond through the whole of that season in 1896. 
In "Lloyd's Natural History" (p. 279) Dr. Bowdler 
Sharpe says that "the mere appearance of birds during 
the summer does not prove that they bred in the neigh- 
bourhood. This autumn (1896) a specimen was sent to 
the British Museum as a young widgeon, and the bird 
in question was supposed to have been hatched in 
Hampshire, but it was not a young bird at all, but an 
old male, changing from his short-lived summer plumage 
to his full dress, and, therefore, probably a non-breeding 
individual which had remained in southern latitudes 
instead of going north to breed. This I take to be the 
case with the birds which have been seen in Norfolk 
and other counties of England during the summer." 
