186 
AKAS CLYPEATA. 
most inaccessible part of the slaUy marsh, and lays te® 
or twelve pale rust coloured eggs ; the young, as soo* 
as hatched, are conducted to the water by the pa'’^®! 
birds. They are said to be at 6rst very shapeless au» 
ugly, for the bill is then as broad as the body, and secay 
too great a weight for the little bird to carry. 
plumage does not actpiire its full colours nutil after 
second moult. 
The blue-winged shoveller is twenty inches 
and two feet six inches in extent ; the bill is broW"*’, 
black, three inches in length, greatly widened near 
extremity, closely pectinated on the sides, and fiirnis'*^ 
with a nail on the tip of each mandible ; irides, bri?** 
orange ; tongue, large and fleshy ; the inside of the upP* 
and outside of the lower mandible are grooved, so as * 
receive distinctly the long separated reedlike teel"*.' 
there is also a gibbosity in the two mandibles, "’b'j 
do not meet at the sides, and this vacuity is occupi^ 
by the sitters just mentioned; head and upper half ^ 
the neck, glossy, changeable green ; re.st of the neck 
breast, white, |)assing round and nearly meeting abo^^j 
whole belly, dark reddish chestnut ; flanks, a browpj^? 
yellow, penciled transversely with black, between u'f*'',; 
and the vent, which is black, is a band of white ; ba®^ 
blackish brown ; exterior edges of tlie sca|)ulars, whji^! 
lesser wiug-coverts, and some of the tertials, a fine li- 
sky blue; beauty spot on the wing, a changea‘’j- 
resplendent bronze green, bordered above by a band 
white, and below with another of velvety black ; 
of the vying, dusky, some of the tertials streaked dn' 
their middles with white ; tail, dusky, pointed, broa^’i 
edged with white ; legs and feet, reddish orange, b'"' 
toe not finned. 
With the above another was shot, which differed 
liav’ing the breast spotted with dusky, and the b'‘‘j 
with white; the green |dumage of the head interni'-'f^ 
with gray, and the belly with circular touches of " b* ’ 
evidently a young male in its imperfect plumage. j 
The female has the crown of a dusky brovv'n ; re®*.,|| 
the head and neck, yellowish white, thickly spotted 
