THE SHOVELER. 



151 



As long since as the spring of 1818, the late Mr. 

 Youell, of Yarmouth, tried the experiment of rearing 

 young shovelers, by placing eggs, taken in the marshes 

 at Winterton, under domestic fowls, and according to 

 the Rev. W. Whitear* he procured that year upwards 

 of thirty eggs, most of which were hatched out, but 

 succeeded in rearing only two young ones. He also 

 satisfied himself that the bills of young shovelers, when 

 first hatched, are not, as was asserted by some authors 

 of that date, disproportionately large for their size ; the 

 beaks of his nestlings, when a few days old, not being 

 " longer than those of the domestic duck," but " at the 

 age of three weeks they had obviously increased in length 

 more than those of the common duckling." Mr. Beverley 

 Leeds, who has recently succeeded in rearing the young 

 of this species, hatched out in like manner, informs me 

 that they are extremely difficult to get on to food, at 

 first refusing corn or meal of any sort, swimming about 

 the pond as if looking for something on the water. He 

 has only succeeded in keeping them alive, the first two 

 or three days, by throwing coarse dry barley meal in the 

 water, which floats on the surface. If they can get 

 insect food or worms they will eat nothing else, but soon 

 die. They will thrive fast on barley and oatmeal, but 

 are always shy birds, "and never seem happy at sun- 

 down." 



Mr. Cordeaux is the only author, I believe, who 

 refers to the singular habit in this species of swim- 

 ming round and round each other in circles, but as he 

 speaks only from the observation of others, I have much 

 pleasure in giving Mr. Alfred Newton's version of it 

 from his own experience. It is no amatory action, but 

 the real and only object, he considers, is that of pro- 

 curing food, as a pair, when feeding, " get opposite to 



" Transactions" of the Linnean Society, vol. xiii., p. 615. 



