SHOVELLER. 
185 
the upper part of the neck only is black but in full 
plumaged birds of both sexes, the markings are very 
much alike. 
The brant is often seen in our markets for sale. Its 
flesh, though esteemed by many, tastes somewhat sedgy, 
or fishy. 
SUBGENUS II. — -ANAS, BREHM. 
258 . ANAS CLYPEATA, LINNJEUS AND WILSON. — -SHOVELLER. 
WILSON, PLATE LXVII. FIG. VII. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
If we except the singularly formed and dispropor- 
tionate 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 bordered 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 Buffon, 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 
* The figure of this bird, given by Bewick, is in that state. 
