PLATE I 

 SHOVELER. Spatula clypeata 



May 6//r, 1893. This was an exceptionally early season in Scotland, and 

 many birds laid their eggs fully a fortnight earlier than usual. I paid a 

 visit to a small loch among the moors in South Perthshire, where I had 

 repeatedly seen Shovelers during late summer. The nest illustrated was 

 chosen from some seven or eight which we came across on the shores of 

 the loch. They were placed among the heather, tufts of rushes, and coarse 

 glass round the edge of the loch, and were never farther than a hundred 

 yards or so from the water. They were rather deep depressions in the 

 ground, lined with a little moss or dry grass and a large mass of down. 

 Some nests contained as many as eleven eggs, though nine was the most 

 common number. 



The birds sat very closely, as the eggs were highly incubated ; but I was 

 unable to get a photograph of any of them on the nest, as they always 

 departed hurriedly, just at the critical moment when I was focussing them. 



The nest in the photograph was among short heather, grass, and 

 patches of moss, quite close to the water, and contained nine highly in- 

 cubated eggs, two of which were already chipped by the chick inside. The 

 drakes swam about in the middle of the loch in a small party, and were 

 joined by the ducks disturbed from their nests ; the latter, however, invariably 

 returned to their nests as soon as we were a little distance away. Photo- 

 graphy was rather difficult owing to the wind, which made the heather and 

 grass wave about in a most annoying manner. 



I revisited the loch in 1895 on the igth of May, but the season was 

 very late, and although we found fourteen nests of the Shoveler, none of 

 them contained more than four eggs. The keeper told me that the ice was 

 not broken up on the loch till the 2ist of March, and that this made the 

 birds late. 



