99
Concord, Mass.
1913.
Aug. 26
to
Nov. 13
(No 50)

a Shoveler. A few minutes after it had flown down
stream with the three Black Ducks it came back
without them and passed me within 150 yards, when I
had a much better view of it than before, seeing quite
plainly that it was of just the right size for a Spatula
clypeata; that its general coloring was rather light brown;
that it had a good deal of white in the spectrum; that
its head and bill were conspicuously larger, proportionately,
than those of any other surface feeding Duck except
the species just named. At the precise time at
which these observations were made the bird was
flying low and steadily across the marsh where our
boat canal pierces it. Further to the westward the
Duck alighted in some little pool in the meadows,
pitching down very abruptly with a peculiar twisting motion
which, if I remember rightly, is rather characteristic of the Shoveller [Shoveler].