RED SHOVELLER 151 
or more, alternately separating and closing, and 
every time they close they slap each other on the 
wing so smartly that the sound may be heard dis- 
tinctly even when the birds are no longer visible. 
While flying or swimming about they constantly 
utter their far-sounding cry—three or four long, 
clear, whistling notes, followed by another uttered 
with great emphasis and concluding with a kind of 
flourish. 
The nest is made amongst the rushes in the 
marshes, and the eggs are pure white and eight or 
nine in number. 
RED SHOVELLER 
Spatula platalea 
Above and beneath reddish, with round black spots; head and 
neck lighter and spots smaller, lower back blackish, barred with 
rufous, rump black; lesser coverts blue; middle coverts white ; 
secondaries bronzy black ; outer secondaries and scapulars with white 
shaft-stripes ; crissum black ; tail brown, lateral rectrices edged with 
white; bill dark, feet yellow ; length 20 inches, wing 8 inches. 
Female, above blackish brown, edged with rufous; lesser wing-coverts 
bluish; beneath buffy rufous, varied and spotted with blackish except 
on the throat. 
Ture is but one Shoveller Duck in South America, 
the present species, which is confined to the southern 
part of the continent, from Paraguay to Patagonia, 
and is familiar to sportsmen in the Plata as the Red 
Duck, or Espdtula. It is seldom met with in flocks 
of more than twenty or thirty individuals, and a 
