150 ANATID.E. 



Canard gohe-monche. Shrimps have been found in its 

 stomach ; and Mr. Audubon mentions that in North Ame- 

 rica, in some parts of which this duck is abundant, it feeds 

 upon leeches, small fishes, ground-worms, and snails. The 

 flesh is tender, juicy, and of good flavour. The excel- 

 lence of the Canvass-back Duck of America, as an article 

 of food, is proverbial, yet Mr. Audubon also says, that no 

 sportsman Avho is a judge will ever go by a Shovel er to shoot 

 a Canvass-back. 



Wild-fowl are probably more plentiful on the eastern side 

 of England, from Essex to Lincolnshire, than in most other 

 counties, perhaps, because they are opposite, and nearest to 

 Holland, whei'e most of them are very abundant. Mr. Salmon 

 mentions that a pair bred annually amongst some green 

 rushes on the warren at Stanford, in Norfolk. The Rev. 

 Richard Lubbock, in a communication to me from Norfolk, 

 says, " the Shoveler used frequently to breed at Winterton, 

 Horsey, &c., and has not yet discontinued. I have seen two 

 nests at different times ; eight eggs in one, nine in the other, 

 placed in a very dry part of the marsh, at a considerable 

 distance from the Broad." The authors of the Catalogue 

 of the Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, say, " the Shoveler remains 

 all the year in Norfolk. We have twice met with its nest 

 in Winterton Marshes. It was placed in a tuft of grass, 

 where the ground was quite dry, and was made of fine grass. 

 After the female begins to sit, she covers her eggs with down 

 plucked from her body. In the spring of 1818 the warrener 

 at Winterton found several nests belonging to this species, 

 containing in the whole fifty-six eggs." Mr. J. Youell, of 

 Yarmouth, in a communication to the Linnean Society, says, 

 that he, in one season, obtained upwards of thirty eggs of 

 the Shoveler Duck. These eggs were put under some do- 

 mestic fowls, and most of them were hatched ; but he suc- 

 ceeded in rearing only two of them. Tlicir bills, when a 



