luimitc forms (jf litr oi all kinds make up lliis lowly epicure's fare, and its flesh is 

 everywhere held in hijjh esteem. 



Ourinj^' migrations the Shoveler appears usually in small llocks of its own 

 species, or in company with liluehiils. It is occasionally seen upon the smaller 

 ponds and rivers, and in its sumnu-r and winter haunts will explore the tiniest 

 ditches and pools. 



Dr. W'heaton supposed that these hirds nesteil in the iKjrthern part (jf the 

 state, and they may have tlone so ; but their present breeding range lies almost 

 entirely within the northern tier of western states and further north to Alaska, 

 'he nest is an unjjretentious depression lined with grasses and d(jwn, an«l is 

 placed either near water or remote from it. on a tiny islet, in a convenient corner 

 of the swamp, or anywhere in open country. 



The Shoveler is cosmoj)olitan in its range and, while no longer common in the 

 eastern states, it is still numerous in several states of the far west where it breeds. 

 The Shoveler likes reedy ponds and sloughs, where it grubs in the shallows, and 

 obtains a rich feast of insects, tadpoles, worms, and larvre of various kinds, which 

 its shovel-shaped bill seems expressly designed to enable it to scoop up and strain 

 out of the reedy ooze. I'y many it is accounted one of our best table-ducks. And 

 as it is not shy and is often killed in large numbers, it has suli'ered a notable de- 

 crease in mnnbcrs. The Shoveler is a swift flier and is capable of enduring flight, 

 as is apparent from the fact that amuially it finds its way from Alaska over the 

 2,000 miles of intervening ocean to the Hawaiian Islands. There it winters, and 

 the few that escape the ardent pursuit of the island sportsmen retrace their way 

 :icr(jss the tractless ocean in spring for the purpose of nesting. 



Spectacled Eider {Arctonetta fischen) 



Range: lirceds in Alaska from i'oint luirrow to mouth of Kuskokwim, 

 nd on the northern coast of Siberia west to mouth of Lena River; winters on 

 Vleutian Islands. 



Nelson's observations show this .species to be strictly limited to the salt 



. larshes bordering the east coast of Bering Sea, and thus favoring the shallow, 



luddy. coast waters, which appear so distasteful to Steller's eider. The same 



b^^erver estimates that, all told, the spectacled eider does not occupy over 400 



miles of coast line in the breeding season, w^hile the w'idth of the breeding ground 



will not exceed one or two miles. Writing as long ago as 1881, Nelson said 



»f the struggle for existence the species was even then undergoing: "The species 



has to contend against thousands of shotgims in the hands of the natives. The 



diminution in all the species of waterfowl breeding along the coast is more 



and more marked each season, and while this may mean a desertion of one region 



'or another in the case of the great majority of geese and ducks, yet for such 



narrowly-limited species as the spectacled eider, and to a less extent the emperor 



^oose. this diminution is but the beginning of extermination ; moreover, the present 



carcity of large game along the coast is having great effect in causing the natives 



o wage a continually increasing warfare upon the feathered game." 



847 



