The nest of the Pintail is placed among the sedges, rushes, and reeds of open ponds. The clutch consists of eight to ten greenish eggs, which are smaller and somewhat thicker than those of the common Wild Duck. It is a shy bird, difficult to surprise, which arrives here in large flocks, on its way elsewhere, only a few settling on large inaccessible ponds, or on the hidden pools hemmed in by huge reed beds, on the Platten See in Hungary, especially in shallow places where the white water-lilies and other water plants almost cover the surface with their leaves. In such places it pecks about the ground in the same way as the farmyard duck. Its food is tender duck-weed, and the young juicy shoots and points of water plants. But its most eager search is for water beetles, and the larvæ of dragon-flies and other such insects. As the marshes are drained and brought into cultivation the number of these beautiful birds decreases. It is still, however, not uncommon in Hungary.
This is a slender and finely shaped duck which is locally called the “Sea Pheasant.” It comes regularly to our British Islands in October, staying in some districts longer than in others. In the North it seldom tarries long. Its favourite resorts are about our Southern shores and estuaries. When it is feeding the tail is raised high above the water, its head being below the surface. A hybrid between the Mallard and the Pintail, a half-bred drake, is a very handsome bird. Pintails have also been known to pair with Wigeons.
The Pintailed Duck is smaller and more slender, but longer than the Common Wild Duck. The middle tail-feathers are long-shaped like a spit or awl, and from these the bird derives its name. The neck is long and thin like that of the Heron. The drake has fine summer plumage. The wings have a shining metallic green beauty-spot bordered with red in front and white behind. Head a dusky-brown, cheeks copper colour. Throat white on either side, and black in the middle from the back of the head downwards. The whole of the underparts white, also the mantle, which is adorned with fine, close, dark wavy lines. The long pointed shoulder feathers are black with a white border. Tail nearly black, the middle pointed feathers quite black, and also the under tail cover. Legs bluish-grey; beak bluish, eyes brown. The female bird is like the female wild duck in colour but has the long tail feathers.
The Shoveler.
(Spatula clypeata.)
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,
HARMFUL.
