The Shoveler has a stately, direct, and rapid flight. It can be recognised by its great beak even when flying high. It is less timid than the other ducks, and does not go about in flocks, but if it does join flocks of other ducks, it flies somewhat apart from them. As its beak indicates, its food consists less of plants than of small living creatures of the pond and lake, fish, insects, shell-fish, and other things which it finds in the water while it paddles around and lets the water run through the filtering edge of its beak. But the worst of it is this: The fish spawn in the shallow, tepid water near the bank, and there the young fishes are hatched. When the Shoveler comes to a spawning bed, in its voracity it destroys the young fish in thousands, before they are fully hatched. Thus it is a great pest to fishermen, and it is therefore fortunate that this bird belongs to the rarer species. * * * * * “Compared with the size of the Shoveler’s paddles, its webs are small. Splashes and reed-beds are what it delights in. Many days have I passed where these birds could be seen. All sorts of flying and creeping things lived there; in fact the amount of insect life to be found in the haunts of the Shoveler would have to be seen, nay more than that, it would have to be felt, before it could be thoroughly believed in. Some sorts of insects have a very short play-time. Coming forth in clouds as perfect flying creatures, they fulfil the purpose they were created for, and then they drop down in the reeds, [Illustration: HARMFUL. THE SHOVELER.] or in the water either dead or dying. So thickly at times do these short-lived insects cover the water that, in places, the masses look like large patches of grey film. This is the time for the Shoveler. He and his mate, will, so to speak, lay their heads and necks on the water, the lower mandible being just under water; and they will paddle along feeding as they go. These insects are part of their food in the season. Then too, they can probe and spatter on the edge of the reeds, where they find plenty of food, for the soft mud at their roots is full of the seeds of water plants growing below. As to the undeveloped forms of insect life, the light vegetable mud is full of these. So this handsome bird goes on his way very happily if not disturbed.”[8] Shovelers are plump ducks, and when their food is right are excellent for the table. The Shoveler visits Great Britain during cold weather, and a fair number of the birds stay and breed with us.