SHOVELER. 245 



and Vieillot says, that at the present time, one of its com- 

 mon names in France is Canard gobe-moucJie. Shrimps 

 have been found in its stomach ; and Mr. Audubon men- 

 tions that in North America, in some parts of which this 

 Duck is abundant, it feeds upon leeches, small fishes, 

 ground-worms, and snails. The flesh is. tender, juicy, and 

 of good flavour. The excellence of the Canvass-back Duck 

 of America, as an article of food, is proverbial, yet Mr. 

 Audubon also says, that no sportsman who is a judge will 

 ever go by a Shoveler to shoot a Canvass-back. 



Wild-fowl are probably more plentiful on the eastern 

 side of England, from Essex to Lincolnshire, than in most 

 other counties, perhaps, because they are opposite, and 

 nearest to Holland, where most of them are very abundant. 

 Mr. Salmon mentions that a pair bred annually amongst 

 some green rushes on the warren at Stanford, in Norfolk. 

 The Rev. Richard Lubbock, in a communication to me 

 from Norfolk, says, " the Shoveler used frequently to breed 

 at Winterton, Horsey, &c., and has not yet discontinued. 

 I have seen two nests at different times ; eight eggs in one, 

 nine in the other, placed in a very dry part of the marsh, 

 at a considerable distance from the Broad." The authors 

 of the Catalogue of the Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, say, 

 "the Shoveler remains all the year in Norfolk. We have 

 twice met with its nest in Winterton Marshes. It was 

 placed in a tuft of grass, where the ground was quite dry, 

 and was made of fine grass. After the female begins to 

 sit, she covers her eggs with down plucked from her body. 

 In the spring of 1818 the warrener at Winterton found 

 several nests belonging to this species, containing in the 

 whole fifty- six eggs. 1 ' Mr. J. Youell, of Yarmouth, in a 

 communication to the Linnean Society, says, that he, in 

 one season, obtained upwards of thirty eggs of the Shoveler 



