460 



SHOVELER. 



tail consists of fourteen dusky feathers edged with white, the outer ones 

 wholly white ; legs orange-red. 



The female a good deal resembles the common duck. In the wing 

 the markings are like the male, except in the first year, but not so 

 bright. Both sexes are apt to vary much in colour. The Shoveler is 

 sometimes met with in England, but by no means common. It is said 

 that some remain in France during the breeding season ; that they make 

 a nest of rushes, in which they lay ten or twelve rufous-coloured eggs. 

 It is found in Germany, Russia, and America. 



* The labyrinth of the trachea, belonging to the blue-winged Shoveler, 

 is a very small, roundish, bony arch, well explained in the Linnsean 

 Transactions, referred to in the synonimes. The very great difference 

 in the size and weight, as well as in the plumage of this species, have 

 long made us suspect that one of the changes incident to it, might turn 

 out to be the red-breasted Shoveler. 



Our great attention to the change of plumage in all the duck tribe 

 we have been able to procure alive, has been the means of much know- 

 ledge on this important subject, not a little aided by strict attention to 

 dead specimens, killed in different seasons of the year. From all these 

 observations collectively, we have no doubt remaining, but that the 

 red-breasted Shoveler is no other than this bird in one of its accustomed 

 changes, either intermediate between the young and the adult, or the 

 annual change of the adult, similar to what we have related of the 

 pintail : but before we proceed to describe the bird in this probable 

 annual change, we shall describe one somewhat varying from the indi- 

 vidual described above. A pair of these, male and female, taken to- 

 gether in a decoy in Lincolnshire, about the middle of April, were sent 

 to us by Mr. Wright, of Wainneet. These appeared so much smaller 

 than any before examined, that for some time we could hardly persuade 

 ourselves that they were not a distinct species. The male was fat, and 

 yet weighed only seventeen ounces : the female was rather poor, and 

 weighed no more than ten ounces and a half, which is less than that 

 of a teal. There was nothing material, however, in the plumage, to 

 favour an opinion that these could be distinct from the common Sho- 

 veler, and the trachea of the male at once evinced them to be such. In 

 this bird, the head, neck, breast, and belly, were the same as formerly 

 described : the back dusky-black, reaching up to the green on the 

 neck in a peak ; these feathers are slightly edged with cinereous ; the 

 rump, upper tail coverts, and from the vent to the tail, black, glossed 

 with green ; those that cover the sides of the tail, fine deep green ; the 



