478 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
confinement; it may, however, be so kept, and will 
breed: Yarrell mentions a pair having done so 
in the Zoological Gardens in the summer of 1841. 
Although occasionally found on the sea and on the 
shores of tidal rivers, the Shoveller is on the whole 
an inland rather than a sea bird, frequenting stagnant 
pools, ditches and small lakes much surrounded by 
reeds and rushes and shallow water. 
According to Meyer, the food of this bird consists 
of small worms, aquatic insects, fish and frog spawn, 
tadpoles, small frogs, fresh-water snails, the tender 
shoots of aquatic plants, grasses, buds and seeds of 
rushes and sometimes grain ; shrimps have also been 
found in its stomach. Meyer adds that the stomach 
appears always to contain small stones and pebbles : 
and this agrees with the contents of the stomach of 
two of these birds mentioned in the ‘ Zoologist:’ 
that of the first contained pebbles and some rather 
large pieces of stem or roots of sea-weed,* and that 
of the second minute gravel and vegetable matter.t 
The nest is generally placed amongst grasses and 
weeds where the ground is dry, and is made of 
grasses and weeds: after the female begins to sit she 
~ covers the eggs with down from her own body. 
The beak of the Shoveller is very peculiar, being 
very broad towards the tip, much more so than in any 
« * Zoologist’ for 1867 (Second Series, p. 742). 
+ Id., 1864, p. 9120. 
