132 DUCK SHOOT IN d. 



rowly bordered by white. The tail is whitish, blotched 

 with brownish-gray. The expanded bill is black, the 

 eyes yellow and the feet orange-red. 



The female is colored very much as is the female 

 mallard, but has the blue wing-coverts and the green 

 speculum. The belly is sometimes pure white. The 

 bill is orange or brown, often speckled with black. The 

 feet are orange. Length, about 19 inches; wing, 9 to 

 10 inches. 



Young males of different ages have the plumage 

 generally like the female, but as they grow older the 

 head and neck are mottled with black and the under 

 parts are often chestnut. Whatever the plumage, the 

 shoveller may be recognized by the great expansion of 

 the bill toward the tip, which gives it the name spoon- 

 bill. This bill has a fringe of very slender, close-set 

 lamellae, which are long yet flexible, and are admirably 

 adapted to the process of sifting out food from the fine 

 soft mud in which the shoveller delights to feed. 



This species is one of the most widely distributed of 

 all the ducks, being found throughout the whole of the 

 northern hemisphere. In North America it is nowhere 

 a very abundant duck, but, at the same time, is fre- 

 quently met with throughout the South and West ; yet 

 it never appears in great flocks, as do the black duck, 

 mallard, widgeon and the teals, but rather in small, oc- 

 casional companies, though I have seen a flock number- 

 ing nearly a hundred. This, however, is unusual. 



On the New England coast and Long Island the 

 shoveller is quite an uncommon bird, but further to the 



