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THE SHOVELER. 

 (Spatula clypeata.) 



THE Shoveler has a stately, direct, and rapid flight. It 

 can be recognised by its great beak even when flying 

 high. It is less timid than the other ducks, and does 

 not go about in flocks, but if it does join flocks of other 

 ducks, it flies somewhat apart from them. As its beak 

 indicates, its food consists less of plants than of small 

 living creatures of the pond and lake, fish, insects, shell- 

 fish, and other things which it finds in the water while 

 it paddles around and lets the water run through the 

 filtering edge of its beak. But the worst of it is this : 

 The fish spawn in the shallow 7 , tepid water near the 

 bank, and there the young fishes are hatched. When 

 the Shoveler comes to a spawning bed, in its voracity it 

 destroys the young fish in thousands, before they are 

 fully hatched. Thus it is a great pest to fishermen, and 

 it is therefore fortunate that this bird belongs to the 

 rarer species. 



" Compared with the size of the Shoveler's paddles, its 

 webs are small. Splashes and reed-beds are what it 

 delights in. Many days have I passed where these birds 

 could be seen. All sorts of flying and creeping things 

 lived there ; in fact the amount of insect life to be found 

 in the haunts of the Shoveler would have to be seen, 

 nay more than that, it would have to be felt, before it 

 could be thoroughly believed in. Some sorts of insects 

 have a very short play-time. Coming forth in clouds 

 as perfect flying creatures, they fulfil the purpose they 

 were created for, and then they drop down in the reeds, 



