wing coverts of a fine pale sky-blue, terminated with white tips, which form an oblique stripe across the wings, and an upper border to the beauty spot, or spangle, which is of a glossy changeable bronze, or resplendent green, and also divides or crosses the wings in the same direction: the greater quills and the tail are dusky, but in the latter the outside feathers, and the edges of some of the adjoining ones, are white: a ring of white also encircles the rump and the vent, behind which the feathers under the tail are black: legs and feet red. The female is smaller than the male, from which she also differs greatly in the colours of her plumage, the coverts and spangle spot on her wings being less brilliant, and the other parts, composed of white, grey, and rusty, crossed with curved dusky lines, giving her much the appearance of the Common Wild Duck. She makes her nest, lined with withered grasses, on the ground, in the midst of the largest tufts of rushes or coarse herbage, in the most inaccessible part of the slaky marsh: she lays ten or twelve pale rusty-coloured eggs; and as soon as the young are hatched, they are conducted to the water by the parent birds, who watch and guard them with the greatest care. They are at first very shapeless and ugly, for the bill is then almost as broad as the body, and seems too great a weight for the little bird to carry. Their plumage does not acquire its full colours until after the second moult.

It would appear, from the varied descriptions of ornithologists, that these birds differ much from each other, both in the colour of the bill, and in the disposition of the markings of their rich-coloured plumage. All, however, agree in ranking the Shoveler among the most beautiful of the Duck tribe; and it is also, in the opinion

of many, inferior to none of them in the delicate flavour of its flesh, which is red, juicy, and tender.

*

It has not yet been ascertained whether the Shoveler breeds in England, where indeed it is a scarce bird; but according to M. Baillon, they are not uncommon in France, where they arrive about the month of February, disperse in the marshes, and a part of them hatch every year. He conjectures that they advance southward, for they are seldom met with after the first northerly wind that blows in March, and he adds, that those of them which then stay behind do not depart till September. He also remarks that hardly any are ever seen during the winter, from which he concludes that they shun the approach of cold. They are said to be met with in Scania and Gothland, and in most parts of Germany, Russia, and Kamtschatka; and also, in the winter months, in New York and Carolina, in America.

This species is of so wild, shy, and solitary a disposition, that all attempts hitherto made to domesticate them have failed. This work was favoured with the bird from which the foregoing figure and description were taken, by the author's friends at Cambridge.

The Anas muscaria of Linnæus (Le Souchet à ventre blanc of Brisson) differs only from this in having the belly white, and is considered merely as a variety of the same species.

The friend and correspondent of the Count de Buffon.

THE RED-BREASTED SHOVELER.

"SIZE of a Common Duck. Bill large, serrated on the sides, and entirely of a brownish yellow colour: head large: eyes small: irides yellow: breast and throat of a reddish brown: back brown, growing paler towards the sides the tips and pinions of the wings grey: quills brown; the rest of a greyish brown: the speculum, or wing spot, purple, edged with white: tail short, and white vent of a bright brown, spotted with darker: legs short and slender: feet small, and of a reddish brown colour."

"In the female all the colours are fainter, and the speculum of the wings blue."

"This species is sometimes taken in the decoys of Lincolnshire."

THE GADWALL,

OR GRAY.

(Anas strepera, Lin.-Le Chipeau, Buff.)

THE Gadwall is less than the Mallard, measuring about nineteen inches in length, and twenty-three in breadth. The bill is flat, black, and two inches long, from the tip to the corners of the mouth: the head, and upper part of the neck, are of a rufous brown colour, lightest on the throat and cheeks, and finely speckled and dotted all over with black and brown: the feathers on the lower part of the neck, breast, and shoulders, look like scales, beautifully margined and crossed with curved black and white lines: those of the back, scapulars, and sides, are brown, marked transversely with narrower waved streaks of a dusky colour: the belly and thighs are dingy white, more or less sprinkled with grey: the lower part of the back dark brown: rump and vent black; and the tail ash, edged with white. The ridge and lesser coverts of the wing are of a pale rufous brown, crossed obliquely by the beauty spot, which is a tri-coloured bar of purplish red, white, and black: the greater quills are dusky: legs orange red. The wings of the female are barred like those of the male, but the colours are of a much duller cast, and her breast, instead of his beautiful markings, is only plain brown, spotted with black.

Birds of this species breed in the desert marshes of the north, and remain there throughout the spring and summer. On the approach of winter they leave the European and Siberian parts of Russia, Sweden, &c. and aided by the first strong north-east wind, commonly make their appearance about the month of November, on the

French, British, and other more southern shores, where they remain till the end of February, and then return to their northern haunts. They are very shy and wary birds, feeding only in the night, and lurking concealed among the rushes in the watery waste during the day, in which they are seldom seen on the wing.

These birds shew themselves expert in diving as well as in swimming, and often disappoint the sportsman in his aim; for the instant they see the flash of the pan, they disappear, and dive to a distant secure retreat.