74 SHOVELLER. 



The Blue-winged Shoveller is twenty inches long, and two feet six 

 inches in extent ; the bill is brownish black, three inches in length, 

 greatly widened near the extremity, closely pectinated on the sides, and 

 furnished with a nail on the tip of each mandible ; irides bright orange ; 

 tongue large and fleshy ; the inside of the upper and outside of the 

 lower mandible are grooved so as to receive distinctly the long, sepa- 

 rated reed-like teeth ; there is also a gibbosity in the two mandibles, 

 which do not meet at the sides, and this vacuity is occupied by the 

 sifters just mentioned ; head and upper half of the neck glossy, change- 

 able green ; rest of the neck and breast white, passing round and nearly 

 meeting above ; whole belly dark reddish chestnut ; flanks a brownish 

 yellow, pencilled transversely with black, between which and the vent, 

 which is black, is a band of white ; back blackish brown, exterior edges 

 of the scapulars white ; lesser wing coverts and some of the tertials a 

 fine light sky-blue ; beauty spot on the wing a changeable resplendent 

 bronze green, bordered above by a band of white, and below with 

 another of velvety black ; rest of the wing dusky, some of the tertials 

 streaked down their middles with white ; tail dusky, pointed, broadly 

 edged with white ; legs and feet reddish orange, hind toe not finned. 



With the above another was shot, which differed in having the breast 

 spotted with dusky, and the back with white ; the green plumage of the 

 head intermixed with gray, and the belly with circular touches of white ; 

 evidently a young male in its imperfect plumage. 



The female has the crown of a dusky brown ; rest of the head and 

 neck yellowish white, thickly spotted with dark brown ; these spots on 

 the breast become larger, and crescent-shaped ; back and scapulars dai'k 

 brown, edged and centered with yellow ochre ; belly slightly rufous, 

 mixed with white ; wing nearly as in the male. 



On dissection the labyrinth in the windpipe of the male was found to 

 be small ; the trachea itself seven inches long ; the intestines nine feet 

 nine inches in length, and about the thickness of a crow quill. 



