File:Birds and nature in natural colors - being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada (1913) (14751954732).jpg

Identifier: birdsnatureinnat05chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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with it a ready mark of identifi-cation, so that the diminishing numbers which appear in March or early April donot escape the notice of the ornithologist. The broad flattened bill indicates thatits possessor is a gourmet of discriminating taste and unique opportunity. Mostof the river ducks are obliged to depend more or less upon the senses of touchand taste rather than sight as they encounter food below the surface of the water,but in the case of the Shoveler these senses are developed to an extraordinarydegree. The bird evidently feeds somewhat after the manner of the Right Whale,by filling its mouth at random and then ejecting the water through the mouth-parts, to retain in the lamell.e whatever is of value. The tongue of the duck isalso modified, being provided with specialized taste papillae to enable it to dis-criminate meat from poison; while as for plain dirt, the bird is probably willingto take its traditional peck any given day. Insects and vegetable matter, as well as 846
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luimitc forms (jf litr oi all kinds make up lliis lowly epicures fare, and its flesh iseverywhere held in hijjh esteem. Ourinj^ migrations the Shoveler appears usually in small llocks of its ownspecies, or in company with liluehiils. It is occasionally seen upon the smallerponds and rivers, and in its sumnu-r and winter haunts will explore the tiniestditches and pools. Dr. Wheaton supposed that these hirds nesteil in the iKjrthern part (jf thestate, and they may have tlone so; but their present breeding range lies almostentirely within the northern tier of western states and further north to Alaska,he nest is an unjjretentious depression lined with grasses and d(jwn, an«l isplaced either near water or remote from it. on a tiny islet, in a convenient cornerof the swamp, or anywhere in open country. The Shoveler is cosmoj)olitan in its range and, while no longer common in theeastern states, it is still numerous in several states of the far west where it breeds.The Shoveler likes reedy

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