65 



SHOVELLER. 

 AJVAS CLYPEATA. 



\ 



[Plate LXVII.— Fig. 7.] 



he SoucM, Briss. YI, p, 329. 6. j)L B2.Jig. 1.— Buff. 9. 191.— PL JSnL 97i.—.Rrct. Zool JV*o. 485. 

 — Catesb. I, 3)1. 96, female.— Lath. 5f]/Ti. Ill, p. 509.— Peale's Museum, J^o, 273*. 



IF we except the singularly formed and disproportionate size 

 of the bill, there are few Ducks more beautiful, or more elegantly 

 marked than this. The excellence of its flesh, which is uniformly 

 juicy, tender, and well tasted, is another recommendation to which 

 it is equally entitled. It occasionally visits the sea coast ; but is 

 more commonly found on our lakes and rivers, particularly along 

 their muddy shores, where it spends great part of its time in 

 searching for small worms, and the larvae of insects, sifting the 

 watery mud through the long and finely set teeth of its curious 

 bill, which is admirably constructed for the purpose; being large, 

 to receive a considerable quantity of matter, each mandible bor- 

 dered with close-set, pectinated rows, exactly resembling those of 

 a weaver's reed, which fitting into each other form a kind of sieve, 

 capable of retaining very minute worms, seeds, or insects, which 

 constitute the principal food of the bird. 



The Shoveller visits us only in the winter, and is not known 

 to breed in any part of the United States. It is a common bird 

 of Europe, and, according to M. Baillon the correspondent of Buf- 

 fon, breeds yearly in the marshes in France. The female is said 

 to make her nest on the ground, with withered grass, in the midst 

 of the largest tufts of rushes or coarse herbage, in the most inac- 

 cessible part of the slaky marsh, and lays ten or twelve pale rust 

 colored eggs ; the yoimg, as soon as hatched, are conducted to the 



VOL. VIII. R 



