14 SPATULA CLYPEATA 



isolated pairs have nested — Long Point, Dunnville, Hamilton (Cooke, 190G; U.S. Biological Sur- 

 vey) — and a specimen has been taken near Quebec as late as May 31 (Mousley, 1921). The south- 

 ern limit of the breeding range is not wholly clear. Audubon's statement that he found the Shoveller 

 nesting near Galveston, Texas, might have been thought unusual until members of the U.S. Biologi- 

 cal Survey came across a female with her brood near East Bernard and then found the species breed- 

 ing near Brownsville (Gaut; Lloyd, U.S. Biological Survey). Whether any of these ducks breed in 

 western Texas it is impossible at present to say, but Strecker's (1912) statement that they nest all 

 over Texas certainly requires further evidence. Even in Mexico, near Chihuahua and at the tip of 

 Lower California, specimens have been found in the nesting season (Cooke, 1906). Reports of breed- 

 ing at Lake Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico (Nordhoff, 1922) require further confirmation. 



In the Old World as in the New, the Shoveller is one of the more southerly breeders. In the British 

 Isles it has been increasing as a breeding bird and has been extending its range during the last fifty 

 p, years. It now nests in many localities in Scotland, the northernmost records being for 



the Hebrides and the Orkneys (Rintoul and Baxter, 1920a). It also nests in a number 

 T | 1S of counties in England, but more rarely in the west and in Wales, than on the North 



Sea side (H. Saunders, 1899; Millais, 1902; Stonham, 1908; and others). In Ireland it 

 breeds in all provinces and in most counties (Ussher and Warren, 1900). 



On the Continent a small number nest in southwestern Norway as far north as 62° north latitude 

 (Collett, 1873; Schaanning, 1913), but in Sweden it is more common as a nesting bird, the range 

 Western extending on the Bothnian Gulf littoral north to 65° and to Quickjock on the Arctic 



Europe Circle (Wallengren, 1854). A limited number nest in Denmark (Kjiirbolling, 1850) 



and to a still lesser extent throughout Germany, even so far south as Bavaria and Wiirtemberg 

 (Naumann, 1896-1905; Wustnei, 1898; Hantzsch, 1903; Dahl, 1905; Detmers, 1911). In Holland it 

 is said to be a common breeder (Schlegel, 1859; Albarda, 1886), but I find no evidence of its ever hav- 

 ing nested in Belgium, though it is said to do so in Picardy, France (d'Aubusson, 1911), and excep- 

 tionally even in the marismas of southern Spain (A. Chapman and Buck, 1910). Specimens are oc- 

 casionally seen in summer in northern Italy and the species is said to have bred in Sicily and near 

 Venice, but the evidence is unsatisfactory (Arrigoni degli Oddi, 1904). There are a few records of 

 nesting in Switzerland (Fatio, 1904). In what is now Czecho-Slovakia there are a number of localities 

 where the Shoveller nests regularly and in some numbers (Fritsch, 1872; von Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen 

 and von Dalla-Torre, 1890). According to Mojsisovics von Mojsvar (1897) it breeds commonly 

 near Apaj, Austria, and in Hungary it does so in many localities, chiefly in the south (von Mojsiso- 

 vics, 1886; Csato, 1885). A few seem to nest in Montenegro (Reiser and von Fiihrer, 1896) and the 

 species has been found breeding near Svistov (Reiser, 1894). In Rumania it nests commonly in the 

 Dobrudja (Sintenis, 1877) but not in great numbers in Transylvania (von Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen 

 and von Dalla-Torre, 1890). 



The Shoveller nests plentifully in parts of Poland (Taczanowski, 1888; Katin, 1912; Schnuer, fide 

 Naumann, 1896-1905). In Russia it has been recorded as breeding commonly in the Crimea (Radde, 

 „ . 1854; Brauner, 1899) and Ekaterinoslav (Valkh, 1911), in Cherson (Brauner, 1894), 



Bessarabia (Radakoff, 1879), Orel (Daniloff, 1864), Moscow and Tula (Menzbier, 1881; 

 Lorenz, 1892), Kazan (Russki, 1893), the Urals north of 50° north latitude (Harvie-Brown, 1878), in 

 the former Baltic Provinces (Loudon, 1909), Pskof (Zarudny, 1910), St. Petersburg (von Brandt, 

 1880; Bianchi, 1907), Novgorod (Bianchi, 1910) and commonly in Archangel and along the lower 

 Petchora (Goebel, 1869a; Seebohm, 1882a). 



In Finland the breeding range is confined to the southern half (von Nordmann, 1864; Suoma- 

 lainen, 1908; Palmgren, 1913) but on the coast specimens have been taken so far north as Uleaborg 

 ■p. . , and Tornea, and there is one record for Lapland, 69° north latitude (Palmen, 1876). 



According to a recent writer (Montell, 1917) the species is a rare breeder in north- 

 western Finland (Muonio-Enontekis district) as far as the Norwegian border. 



