836 



DUCK. 



in which the female deposits her eggs, which are 

 from ten to fifteen, and of a white colour. Th< 

 places where those nests are found bear some rcsem 

 blance to the nesting-places of the eider dueks, ant 

 there is a correspondence of habit. Tire females o 

 both cover their eggs with the down which they pul 

 from iheir own breasts ; but, as the present species 

 sits in less exposed situations than the eiders, 

 smaller quantity answers the same purpose. The 

 male, however, takes his turn at sitting, while the 

 female is abroad in search of her food, which is early 

 in the morning and late in the evening, but she is 

 never long absent from the nest. Their food appears 

 to consist principally of insects, small Crustacea, anti 

 the spawn and small fry of fishes. As they do not 

 range any great breadth of surface in quest of food, 

 each pair occupies some portion of the line of coasl 

 as a sort of preserve ; and as they do riot flock during 

 the great gathering of water-fowl, more than two are 

 seldom seen together. 



The lineal dimensions of the sheldrake, and also 

 the weight, are nearly the same as those of the 

 mallard, but the gait and markings are very different. 

 The sheldrake has a little of the strut and swagger of 

 the goose. The feet, and greater part of the bill, 

 are of a reddish colour ; but fhe basal enlargement 

 of the bill, the openings of the nostrils, and the nail 

 on the tip, are black ; and we may add, that the 

 distinctness of this nail is another approximation to 

 the characters of the goose. The head and neck 

 are of a beautifully rich green ; the lower part of the 

 neck, the back, the rump, the tail-coverts, and basal 

 part of the tail-feathers, are white. There is a band 

 of reddish bay, which forms a collar on the lower 

 part of the neck, and proceeds along the sides and 

 Hanks, and through this band a list of blackish brown 

 extends to the vent. The outer half of the scapulars, 

 and the principal quills, are black, and the secondaries 

 glossed with a wing spot of green and purple reflec- 

 tions. In so far as colour is concerned, the sheldrake 

 is one of the handsomest of our aquatic birds. The 

 female has much more resemblance to the male than 

 in the common wild duck, being only rather less in 

 size, and not quite so bright in the colours. 



The RUDDY SHELDRAKE (T. rutila). This species 

 has the bill and the head smaller than the former, and 

 the front and cheeks are white, extending to behind 

 the eyes ; the remainder of the head, and upper part 

 of the neck, rusty brown ; the body pale chestnut ; 

 the wing-coverts white ; the primary quills, the rump, 

 and the tail, black ; and the wing-spots green, with 

 purple reflections. These birds are exceedingly rare 

 in Britain, even as stragglers, for it is not the habit of 

 the genus to straggle much ; they are, however, 

 described as being very plentiful on the continental 

 shores of the North Sea, and also on those of the 

 Baltic, where the country near the coast is sand}', 

 and the sand blown into hummocks or hillocks, or, as 

 the French call them, duties, which is very apt to be 

 the case in such places. Among those diversified 

 surfaces, which are generally protected, in great part, 

 by a strong coating of bent, which gives place to more 

 kindly herbage as the sea continues to recede, which 

 it almost invariably does from those sandy shores. 

 These places generally abound in rabbits and rabbit- 

 holes, of which the sheldrakes take possession, and 

 use them as their nesting-places ; and it is for this 

 reason that the common sheldrake has got the name 

 Vulpanser, the fox-goose. 



The SHOVELLER (Spathulea clypeata}. It is pro- 

 bable that there are varieties of this bird in those 

 parts of the world which are well adapted to its 

 habits, and at the same time far apart from each 

 other, but only one is satisfactorily made out as an 

 inhabitant of Europe ; and we still want a good 

 account of the wild ducks of tropical countries, and 

 of countries in the southern hemisphere, more espe- 

 cially of New Holland, which, from the quantity of 

 rain that falls at certain seasons, and the want of any 

 other means than evaporation to dry it up, must 

 make that part of the world, seasonally at least, a 

 great duck country ; and, as that is the quarter of the 

 world in which modern discovery has found the rara 

 avis, or impossible bird of the ancients, we may be 

 prepared to meet with some novelties when the 

 interior of that country is a little more carefully 

 explored. 



The shoveller is a very handsome bird, only its 

 bill is disproportionally large, and very peculiar in 

 shape. It is about three inches in length, of a black 

 colour, widened toward the extremity ; and the 

 fibres along the margin are so much produced, that 

 the bill has the appearance of being surrounded all 

 along the gape with a fringe of hairs. This form, of 

 the bill is well adapted to the habit of the animal, 

 which is that of picking up very small animal matters 

 in the shallows and runs of the rivers ; and as these 

 fibrous appendages are very sensitive, they enable it 

 to detect with great nicety all substances that are 

 edible. 



Shoveller. 



The shoveller is a much more inland bird than the 

 heldrake, and it is also rather more discursive. It is 

 bund, we believe with very little difference of appear- 

 nce, both in the eastern continent and the western ; 

 >ut, so far as is known, it is a bird of the northern he- 

 misphere, or northern migration only, and is not met 

 with in any part of the south. There are, however, seve- 

 al ducks of New Holland, and some of New Zealand, 

 which have the gape of the bill bordered with mem- 

 )rane, and the structure of the organ suited for nearly 

 he same purposes as that of the shoveller ; but we are 

 not sufficiently acquainted with the habits of those 

 aces to be able to speak with much certainty re- 

 garding them. Their bills are in general bordered 

 with an entire membrane, or, at least, one forming a 

 ess decided fringe than that of the shoveller. On the 

 ontinent of Europe it is pretty abundant, and it 

 ireeds in the marshes of the middle latitudes ; but in 

 Britain it is not a very common bird, even in the 

 ens. In America, it, or rather perhaps they (for 

 here seem to be varieties in America), appear to be 

 much more migratory than they are in the eastern 



