SKOVELEE. 175 



some by dabbling in the water. They also swallow small 

 stones. 



The nest of this species, built besides rivers, lakes, and 

 other waters, or in watery places, appears to be made of 

 grass, commingled with down from the bird itself. In some 

 cases the bare earth or sand is scarcely covered with any 

 materials; in others, a tuft of grass is laid in. After the 

 female has begun to sit, she covers the eggs with down 

 plucked from her own body. 



The eggs are as many as eight, nine, ten, or twelve in 

 number. They are of a buff white colour, with a tinge of 

 green. 



Incubation lasts three weeks. The young leave the nest 

 almost immediately after being hatched, and repair with their 

 mother to the water. 



This species bred in the year 1854, in the gardens of the 

 Zoological Society, London. 



Male; weight, about twenty-two ounces; length, about one 

 foot eight inches; ' bill, long, and dark brownish lead-colour, 

 the edges much dilated towards the tip. The tooth is small 

 and turned inwards, and the margins of the bill in this bird 

 are even more than ordinarily pectinated in both mandibles 

 with the processes which fit into each other so as to act as 

 a sieve for the food. Iris, bright yellow; head, crown, and 

 neck on the back, brownish green, with a purple reflection, 

 which colours in the summer change on the crown to blackish 

 brown, spotted with lighter brown, and slightly glossed with 

 green; the sides of the head and neck, reddish white, speckled 

 with brown. Nape, white, in summer blackish brown, with 

 the feathers margined with paler, and slightly glossed with 

 green. The throat in summer is reddish white, speckled with 

 brown; breast above white, on the middle rich chesnut brown; 

 in summer ferruginous, spotted with black, and on the sides 

 with zigzag lines of the same; below, white. In summer it 

 becomes a mixture of yellowish brown and orange brown, or 

 reddish white, the feathers being spotted with black. Back, 

 dusky brown, on the middle dark brown, the edges of the 

 feathers lighter-coloured, and glossed with green; on the 

 lower part nearly black, tinged with green; in summer it 

 becomes deep brown, margined with pale yellowish brown. 



The wings have the second quill feather the longest; greater 

 wing coverts, brown, tipped with white, forming thereby a 

 bar across the wing; lesser wing coverts, pale blue; primaries, 



