SHOVELLER. 555 



Although the Shoveller has such a wide area of distribution, and is 

 fairly abundant in most localities where it breeds, it is not seen in such 

 large flocks as many other species of Duck. It generally migrates in 

 small parties, and in spring sometimes in single pairs, which occasionally 

 attach themselves to a migratory flock of some other species of Duck. 

 During the breeding-season it mixes freely with other Ducks, both when 

 swimming on the water and feeding on the banks. The Shoveller is a 

 somewhat late migrant, seldom arriving in Germany before the beginning 

 of April. The spring migration lasts throughout May, the birds breeding 

 furthest north passing through at the end of that month. In the valley 

 of the Petchora Harvie- Brown and I saw the Shoveller on the Arctic 

 circle on the 19th of June, and in the valley of the Yenesay I first 

 obtained it in the same latitude on the 18th of June. In Germany in 

 autumn small parties of this bird collect in August, and the greater number 

 of migrants pass through in October ; but the first frosts of November are 

 the signal for the final disappearance for the winter of the last stragglers. 

 The Shoveller generally migrates by night in small parties, but the sudden 

 appearance of cojd weather will sometimes induce it to begin its journey 

 southwards during the day. 



The Shoveller may be regarded as a freshwater Duck, though it prefers 

 lakes near the sea to those which are more inland, and occasionally goes 

 down to the mud-flats to feed at low tide. During the breed ing- season 

 it prefers lakes and broad expanses of rivers in wild open country where 

 there are no trees, or where the forests are broken up into straggling 

 patches surrounded by swamps and meadows. If the margin of the lake 

 be hidden by reeds and sedges, and fields of rushes or horsetails stretch 

 far into the shallow water, and especially if here and there streams of 

 running water full of floating pond-weed or other water-plants occur, the 

 locality is one which suits the Shoveller. It is not particularly shy, but can 

 seldom be approached within gunshot, except under cover. The males in 

 their gay plumage are the most difficult to watch ; but on the banks of 

 some of Lord Walsingham's lakes near Merton in South Norfolk you may 

 sit behind a hedge, and with a binocular see the Shoveller swimming about 

 amongst Mallards, Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Teal, and Garganey : some- 

 times they may be seen quietly preening their feathers, at other times 

 sleeping on the surface of the water with their bills hidden under their 

 scapulars, and occasionally feeding at the bottom tail uppermost, the fore 

 half of the body entirely under water. They seldom or never dive, and 

 find some of their food on the water-plants which float in the running 

 streams, some in the mud at the bottom of the shallows, and a consi- 

 derable part on shore. They feed upon all kinds of small insects and 

 mollusks, occasionally eating tadpoles, frogs' spawn, and very small fish, 

 and varying this diet with the tender shoots of grass and other weeds, 



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