66 



SHOVELLER 



water by the parent birds. They are said to be at first very shape- 

 less and ugly, for the bill is then as broad as the body, and seems 

 too great a weight for the little bird to earry. Their plumage 

 does not acquire its full colors until after the second moult. 



The Blue winged Shoveller is twenty inches long, and two 

 feet six inches in extent ; the bill is brownish black, three inches 

 in length, greatly widened near the extremity, closely pectinated 

 on the sides, and furnished with a nail on the tip of each mandi- 

 ble ; irides bright orange ; tongue large and fleshy ; the inside of 

 the upper and outside of the lower mandible are grooved so as to 

 receive distinctly the long separated reed-like teeth; there is also 

 a gibbosity in the two mandibles, which do not meet at the sides, 

 and this vacuity is occupied by the sifters just mentioned ; head 

 and upper half of the neck glossy, changeable green ; rest of the 

 neck and breast white, passing round and nearly meeting above ; 

 whole belly dark reddish chesnut; flanks a brownish yellow, pen- 

 cilled transversely with black, between which and the vent, which 

 is black, is a band of white ; back blackish brown, exterior edges 

 of the scapulars white ; lesser wing coverts and some of the ter- 

 tials a fine light sky-blue ; beauty spot on the wing a changeable 

 resplendent bronze green, bordered above by a band of white, and 

 below with another of velvetty black; rest of the wing dusky, 

 some of the tertials streaked down their middles with white ; tail 

 dusky, pointed, broadly edged with white ; legs and feet reddish 

 orange, hind toe not finned. 



With the above another was shot, which differed in having 

 the breast spotted with dusky, and the back with white; the green 

 plumage of the head intermixed with grey, and the belly with cir- 

 cular touches of white ; evidently a young male in its imperfect 

 plumage. 



The female has the crown of a dusky brown ; rest of the 

 head and neck yellowish white, thickly spotted with dark brown ; 

 these spots on the breast become larger, and crescent-shaped; 



