WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. SQ 
as at the root, with the sides of the upper chap much 
turned down near the end, and furnished with a very 
deep and conspicuous fringe, forming a very perfect 
sifting apparatus. For the rest, it is a light-built Duck, 
with long pointed wings and rather small feet. 
The male’s head and neck are bright metallic green, 
the lower neck and breast white, belly and flanks bay 
followed by a white patch, rump and stern black-green, 
long pointed seapulars blue, black and white ; the wings 
very bright, with blue shoulders and bright green bar 
bordered in front with white. The bill is black, eye 
vellow and feet orange. 
The female is mottled dark and light brown, with a 
general tawny hue ; the wing has a grey or grey brown 
shoulder and the wing-bar is duller green than in the 
male. Her bill is brown above, orange below, and her 
eyes brown. The young are like her, and the male im 
undress is similar, except for being darker and redder 
in hue, and retaining his brilliant wing-colouring. 
The male is about twenty inches long, with a wing 
rather over nine, bill about three, and shank about one 
and-half. The female is smaller. 7 
The Shoveller inhabits the greater part of the northern 
hemisphere, breeding in the temperate portion, and 
migrating south in winter, when it visits India, Ceylon 
and Northern Burma among other places. It becomes 
rarer to the southward than in Northern India, but is 
reported by a writer in the Rangoon Gazette, Nov. 26, 
1908, aS not rare in Pegu or Tenasserim, and Mr. Oates 
has obtained a specimen from the Shan States. It 
does not ordinarily breed in India, but Layard found 
young birds in Ceylon, so it must sometimes do so. 
The nest is on the ground, and the eggs greenish buff. 
In India it haunts fresh water and is found singly or 
in small numbers, keeping to the shallows, for it is of 
all the Ducks most perfectly adapted for surface 
feeding. Captive birds have been noticed to assidu- 
