142 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Game. — Mr.T. Gilbert Pearson (1916) says: 



Shovellers feed mostly at night, especially in places where they are much pursued 

 by sjunners. I have often seen dozens of flocks come from the marshes at sunrise 

 and fly out to the open water, far from any place where a gunner might hide. There, 

 if the weather is lair and not too windy, they will often remain until the shades of 

 night and the pangs of hunger again call them back to the tempting marshes. They 

 do not gather in enormous flocks like some other ducks. I have never seen over 40 

 in one company, and very often they pass by in twos and threes. In hunting them 

 the fowler usually conceals himself in a bunch of tall grass or rushes, on or near the 

 margin of an open pond, and, after anchoring near-by 20 or 30 wooden duck dummies 

 called decoys, sits down to wait the coming of the birds. Sometimes the ducks 

 fly by at a distance of several hundred yards. It is then that the hunter begins to 

 lure them by means of his artificial duck call. Quack-quack, quack-quack, comes his 

 invitation from the rushes. The passing birds, unless too intent on their journey to 

 heed the cry, see what they suppose to be a company of mallards and other ducks 

 evidently profiting by a good feeding place, and, turning, come flying in to settle 

 among the decoys. It is just at this moment, with headway checked and dangling 

 feet, that they present an easy mark for the concealed gunner. 



Audubon (1840) says: " No sportsman who is a judge will ever pass 

 a shoveller to shoot a canvasback." I can not quite agree with this 

 view for the shoveller never seems to get very fat and, to my mind, 

 its flesh is inferior to that of several others. It lives largely on ani- 

 mal food which does not add to its flavor. Perhaps under favorable 

 circumstances it may become fatter and more palatable. 



Winter. — Its main winter range is in the Southern States and 

 Mexico, where it frequents shallow inland waters and rarely is it 

 driven to the coast by severe weather. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — Temperate regions in the Northern Hemisphere. 

 In North America east more or less regularly to the west coast of 

 Hudson Bay and the eastern boundary of Manitoba. Casually east to 

 west central New York (Cayuga County). South to northwestern 

 Indiana (Lake County) and northern Illinois formerly; more recently 

 to western Iowa (Sac County), central western Nebraska (Garden 

 County), Kansas (probably locally), northwestern New Mexico (Lake 

 Burford), central Arizona (Mogollon Mountains), and southern Cali- 

 fornia (Los Angeles County); rarely and locally in Texas (Bexar 

 County and East Bernard), and perhaps in northern Mexico. West 

 to the central valleys of California, central Oregon (Tule Lake and 

 Malheur Lake), northwestern Washington (Lake Washington), and 

 central British Columbia (Fraser Valley and Cariboo District). 

 North regularly to central Alberta (Edmonton) and the valley of 

 the Saskatchewan River; irregularly farther north to the Bering Sea 

 coast of Alaska (Kuskokwim River to Kotzebue Sound), the Ander- 

 son River region, and Great Slave Lake. In the Eastern Hemisphere 

 it breeds from southern Europe and central Asia northward nearly 



