Shoveller, but without success, and the bird died in the
following winter.
It inhabits marshes, lakes, rivers, and muddy shores,
selecting its food in shallow water, by the instrumentality
of the sensitive beak, the laminated sides of which being
abundantly supplied with nerves, enable it to retain the
nutritious and reject the useless. It feeds on some grasses
and other vegetables, with worms, aquatic and other insects,
even some that are winged ; whence Gesner’s name Anas
muscaria. Yieillot says that one of its common names in
France is Canard gobe-mouclie ; it is also called Rouget de
rivière. Shrimps have been found in its stomach ; and
Audubon states that in North America it feeds upon leeches,
small fishes, ground-worms, and snails. The flesh is tender,
juicy, and of good flavour. The excellence of the Canvas-
back Duck of America, as an article of food, is proverbial,
yet Audubon also says that no sportsman who is a judge
will ever go by a Shoveller to shoot a Canvas-back.
In the adult male the beak is lead-colour, dilated on each
side towards the tip ; the irides yellow ; the whole of the
head and the upper part of the neck green ; lowrer part of
the neck, the interscapulars, scapulars, and some of the
tertials, white ; middle of the back dark brown, the feathers
having lighter-coloured margins ; the point of the wing, the
lesser wing-coverts, and outer web of some of the tertials,
pale blue ; greater wing-coverts white ; primaries dark
brown, almost black ; the secondaries the same, but the
speculum green ; rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail-feathers,
almost black ; breast, and all the belly rich chestnut-brown ;
thighs freckled with dark brown, on a ground of lighter
pale brown ; the vent white ; under tail-coverts black ;
legs, toes, and their membranes, reddish-orange ; the nails
black.
The whole length is about twenty inches. From the
carpal joint to the end of the wing, ten inches ; the second
quill-feather the longest.
Adult males in summer change the green colour of the
head and neck to brown, spotted with very dark brown ;
back and scapulars dusky; breast and belly ferruginous,
spotted with black ; legs orange.
Females have the head and neck mottled with two shades
of brown ; the feathers on the upper surface of the body
darker brown in the centre, with light brown edges and tips ;
under surface of the body pale brown.
Young males at first resemble females, changing by slow
degrees to the true distinctive plumage of the sex, but do
not attain it till after the old males have completed their
change under the influence of the autumn moult.
A nestling lent to the Editor by Mr. Bidwell, taken at
Loch Spynie, Elgin, by the late Charles St. John, and
mounted by Mr. John Hancock, is characterized by having
a proportionately longer, narrower, and more slender bill
than the Mallard, but as yet no widening at the tip is
noticeable. The brown of the upper parts is nearly uniform
and unspotted.
Of the windpipes figured below, that with the circular
bony enlargement belongs to the male Shoveller, the other
to the female.