CHAULELASMUS STREPERA.
Gadwall.

Anas strepera, Linn. Faun. Sec apase
cinerea, Brehm, Vég. Deutsch., Pacw I.
Chauliodus strepera, Swains. Journ. Roy. Inst., vol. ii. p. 19.

 

Ktinorhynchus strepera, Eyton, Monogr. Anat., Dale
Chaulelasmus strepera, G. R. Gray, List of Gen. of Birds, 1840, p. 74.
Querquedula strepera, Macgill. Man. Nat. Hist., Orn., vol. ii. p- 169.

 

[ BELievE it will be admitted that some species of our water-fowl are numerically much more abundant than
others: thus the common Wild Duck is extremely plentiful in all the countries it inhabits; and the same
may be said of the Teal ; while the Shoveller and Tufted Duck, though common birds, are fewer in number,
and somewhat less circumscribed in their habitat. The Gadwall is not numerous anywhere. In the British
Islands, as in Europe generally, except, perhaps, in Holland, its appearance is uncertain, and its numbers
never very great; indeed it mostly occurs either singly or in pairs. t

Leadenhall Market, the great emporium for water-fowl, is the best locality for the British collector to
obtain specimens for his cabinet—a batch of aquatic birds from the decoys of Suffolk, Norfolk, and
Lincolnshire frequently comprising a solitary Gadwall ; and examples are often occurring in the great crates
of Ducks sent from Holland. In the central and southern parts of the Kuropean continent it is about as
common as in Holland, North Africa, Asia Minor, and India; in fact we may say that it inhabits the
temperate regions of both the Old and the New World; for it is distributed over the whole of the northern
portion of America, from the fir-countries to Florida, and in the Old World, from Europe to Japan.

‘From Dr. Richardson’s account,” says Swainson, “it braves the rigours of the arctic regions, breeding
in the wooded districts of the Barren Grounds, up to their most northern limits, in lat. 68°; and he shot
specimens on the Saskatchewan, towards the middle of May.

“The haunts of the Gadwall, in America, are the lakes, rivers, and marshes of the interior, particularly
such as abound with reeds and rank aquatic grasses, in which they so much delight as seldom to visit the
sea-coast: their food of course is procured in such situations, and consists of aquatic insects, plants, and
seeds. They feed during the night, and pass the day concealed amongst the weeds and rushes. In
comparison with the Mallard and other kindred forms, its powers of flight are very superior : and, unlike
most of the river-ducks, it dives with the same facility and frequency as many of the marine ducks.”—
Anim. in Menag., p. 252.

Little or no information respecting the breeding-places of the Gadwall in the Old World has been recorded ;
and perhaps the only authentic eggs known are those laid by captive specimens in our menageries. The
bird has bred repeatedly in the Gardens of the Zoological Society; and an egg “left unhatched,” Says
Mr. Yarrell, was of a buffy white, tinged with green, and measured two inches and two lines in length,
by one inch and eight lines in breadth. Mr. Hewitson, in the third edition of bis < Coloured Illustrations
of the Eggs of British Birds,’ states that Mr. Proctor “found a single nest of the Gadwall in Iceland,
placed near the edge of some fresh water, among reeds; it was composed of dry grass, and the eges were
five in number.” But Mr. Alfred Newton is somewhat doubtful as to the bird’s breeding in that country ;
for in his ornithological notes to Mr. Sabine Baring Gould’s ‘Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas,’ he says,
‘looking upon this as a bird of much more southern range, I have omitted its name from my list, but shall
willingly own I am wrong, on receiving good testimony to the contrary.”

Thompson says the Gadwall is of rare occurrence in Ireland, and enumerates only about twenty examples
as having come to his knowledge in eighteen years, but adds that he had been informed by Mr. J. Watters,
Jun., of Dublin, “that he has seen at least one on sale by wild-fowl dealers in the course of every winter for
some years past, all of which had been killed in Ireland,” and remarks “ this singularly agrees with what is
said of the Gadwall in the east of England ; for the Rev. Mr. Lubbock informs us that it is scarce in Norfolk.
but is generally seen in Norwich market once or twice in the winter.”

Mr. Jerdon, in his recently published ‘ Birds of India,’ informs us that the Gadwall is by no means a
rare bird in any part of that country during the cold weather, that it generally frequents the more open
and larger tanks in moderately large parties, that its flight is rapid, and its voice not unlike that of the
common duck, and that it is justly considered one of the best wild ducks for the table. Temminck states
that specimens from Japan do not differ in any respect from those found in Europe.

Structurally the Gadwall is a swimming and buoyant rather than a diving bird, its general contour being