of the Family of Anatida. 



17 



great power of the bill. A thick and strong tongue thus 

 becomes necessary, not so much for taste as to assist the 

 parrot in turning round the nut that is to be cracked ; it aids 

 the efforts of the bill, supports the fruit in a steady position, 

 nnd assists in turning it to a more vulnerable part. 



It is, therefore, to the formation of the bill, as more parti- 

 cularly connected with the peculiar habits assigned by Provi- 

 dence to this family, that we must look for its typical dis- 

 tinctions ; no other of its characters, I apprehend, can be 

 selected, since the rest are common with several other aquatic 

 families. There is nothing peculiar in the diving of Ducks, 

 since the dab-chicks do the same ; or in their frequenting 

 both land and water, for so do the Gull family. If, there- 

 fore, this line of reasoning be just, it follows that we must 

 esteem that form to be pre-eminently typical of the whole 

 family, which exhibits these peculiarities of the bill in the 

 highest state of development. Every ornithologist will conse- 

 quently point to the Shoveller Duck as a fit representative 

 of the 



GENUS ANAS ; 



and as a form which differs from all others found in Europe by 

 the uncommon breadth of its bill, and by the delicacy and great 

 development of the projecting laminae. We have had frequent 



occasion to remark*, and to demonstrate the truth of the 

 observation f , that such birds as are typical of a very compre- 



VOL. U. 



* Encyclopaedia of Geography, now in the press. 

 I See ' Northern Zoology,' vol. ii. 



AUG. 1831. 



