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whose weight seem to oppress them : they 
almost constantly rest on their breast. 
They run and swim as soon as they burst 
from the shell/' &c. This account has been 
copied into many of our treatises on Or- 
nithology and seems to have been received 
as precisely correct. The very young birds 
are certainly covered with grey spotted 
down, and are very much like ducklings 
of the same age ; but the account of the 
bill being nearly as broad as the body, &c. 
might do well enough as a caricature, but 
in describing Nature it is rather too much. 
The fact is, that the bill may be said to be 
a trifle broader than the same part of a 
duckling, but so little that a general ob- 
server would scarcely distinguish the differ- 
ence. Indeed the following sentence 
admits as much, " they run and swim as 
soon as they burst from the shell," this 
eould hardly be the case if the weight of 
the bill oppressed them as much as the re- 
mark would lead us to expect. 
The Shoveler is found in America ; it is 
noticed by Russell among the birds of 
Aleppo ; and according to Pennant it breeds 
