114 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vi. 



Personally, I have never noticed a clutch exceeding 

 eight eggs — more the ])ird, one would think, could hardly 

 cover — ^yet it is not unusual to see a female Tufted Duck* 

 convoying ten, twelve, even fourteen young — singular 

 little downy squabs, darkisli, with pale yellow eyes — 

 while, close by, other adults float broodless. It almost 

 suggests a system of " baby-farming " ! This one notices 

 every July. 



Shoveler [Spatula dypeata). — Mr. A. H. Evans 

 demonstrates that Shovelers have bred on the Borders 

 " probably from time immemorial " {Tweed Area, p. 157). 

 All the same from thirty to forty years ago they were so 

 extremely rare that one might spend a decade without 

 seeing more than an odd pair, or possibly two. Nowa- 

 days they are fairly distributed on most suitable mosses 

 or loughs. Shovelers arrive in pairs at the latter part 

 of March, and go straight to their selected station — 

 usually a single pair at each, less commonly three or 

 four — commencing to nest almost immediately, as early 

 as the native wild Mallards. By April 8th I have found 

 seven eggs; another nest on the 11th, eleven; good- 

 sized young seen on water May 18th (eight yellowish 

 chicks, marked with black, following their mother who 

 swam very deep, her head and back almost awash). 

 Young near full-grown by June 2nd. 



The nest itself is usually a fairly compact mass of reeds 

 and flags, raised a foot or two above bog-level, and often 

 placed (like the Pochard's) in the centre of a clump of 

 flags or sedge. But since at that early period there is, 

 as yet, no new growth, the Shoveler is restricted for 

 concealment to the wreckage of the previous year — a 

 dangerous choice which maternal instinct seeks to 



* On the other hand the late T. E. Buckley fomid clutches of sixteen 

 and seventeen eggs in Caithness ; R. J. Ussher once found a nest 

 with fourteen ; R. H. Read found one with twenty ; and I have 

 myself seen nests with ten, eleven, fifteen, sixteen and eighteen eggs, 

 but in the case of the two latter it is probable that two ducks were 

 laying together. A pile of no fewer than twenty-eight eggs from 

 which a duck shuffled off, was certainly the produce of several 

 couples. — F. C. R. Jourdain. 



