Species IV. ANAS CLTPEATA. 



SHOVELLER. 



[Plate LXVII. Fig. 7.] 



Le Souchet, Briss. vi., p. 329, 6, pi. 32, fig. 1.— Buff, ix., 191.— PZ. Enl 971 — 

 Arct. Zool. No. 485. — Catesb. i., pi. 96, female. — Lath. Spi. in., p. 509.* 



If we accept the singularly formed and disproportionate size of the 

 bill, there are few Ducks more beautiful, or more elegantly marked 

 than this. The excellence of its flesh, which is uniformly juicy, tender, 

 and well tasted, is another recommendation to which it is equally enti- 

 tled. It occasionally visits the seacoast ; but is more commonly found 

 on our lakes and rivers, particularly along their muddy shores, where 

 it spends great part of its time in searching for small worms, and the 

 larvae of insects, sifting the watery mud through the long and finely set 

 teeth of its curious bill, which is admirably constructed for the purpose ; 

 being large, to receive a considerable quantity of matter, each mandible 

 bordered with close-set, pectinated rows, exactly resembling those of a 

 weaver's reed, which fitting into each other form a kind of sieve, capa- 

 ble of retaining very minute worms, seeds, or insects, which constitute 

 the principal food of the bird. 



The Shoveller visits us only in the winter, and is not known to breed 

 in any part of the United States. It is a common bird of Europe, and, 

 according to M. Baillon, the correspondent of Buffon, breeds yearly in 

 the marshes in France. The female is said to make her nest on the 

 ground, with withered grass, in the midst of the largest tufts of rushes 

 or coarse herbage, in the most inaccessible part of the slaky marsh, and 

 lays ten or twelve pale rust-colored eggs ; the young, as soon as 

 hatched, are conducted to the water by the parent birds. They are 

 said to be at first very shapeless and ugly, for the bill is then as broad 

 as the body, and seems too great a weight for the little bird to carry. 

 Their plumage does not acquire its full colors until after the second 

 moult. 



* We add the following synonymes. — Alias chjpeata, Gmel. Sijst. i., p 51 S. No. 

 19. A. Mexicana, Id. p. 519, No. 81?—^. rubens. Id. No. 82.— Lath. Ind. Oni. 

 p. 856, No. 60 ; p. 857, No. 61, No. 62. Gen. Syn. in , p. 51 1, No. 50 ; p. 512, No. 

 57. Blue-wing Shoceller, Catesbv, i., pi. 96, female. — Br. Zool. No. 280, No. 281 — 

 Le Souchet du Mexique, Briss. vi., p. 337. I^ Canard Saiira</e du Mcxique, Id. p 

 327, No. 5.— Canard Souchet, Temm. Man. d' Orn. p. 842.— Bewick, ii., p. 310, 3n 



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