Cetaceans) that beset both maxilla and mandible, has been thought sufficient to remove the species from the Linnsean genus Anas. Except for the extraordinary for- mation of this feature, which carries with it a clumsy look, the male Shoveler would pass for one of the most beautiful of this generally beautiful group of birds. As it is, for bright and variegated colouring, there are few of his kindred to whom he is inferior. His golden eye, his dark green head, surmounting a throat of pure white and succeeded by a breast and flanks of rich bay, are conspicuous ; while his deep brown back, white scapulars, lesser wing-coverts (often miscalled shoulders) of a glaucous blue, and glossy green speculum bordered with white present a wonderful contrast of the richest tints, heightened again by his bright orange feet. On the other hand, the female, excepting the blue wing-coverts she has in common with her mate, is habited very like the ordinary Wild-Duck, A. boscas (see vol. vii. p. 505). The Shovaler is not an abundant species, and in Great Britain its distribution is local ; but its numbers have remarkably increased since the passing of the Wild- Fowl Protection Act in 1876,[1] so that in certain districts it has regained its old position as an indigenous member of the Fauna. It has not ordinarily a very high northern range, but inhabits the greater part of Europe, Asia, and America, passing southwards, like most of the Anatidee to wards winter, constantly reaching India, Ceylon, Abyssinia, the Antilles, and Central America, while it is known to have occurred at that season in New Granada, and, according to Gould, in Australia. Generally resembling in its habits the other freshwater Ducks, the Shoveler has one peculiarity that has been rarely, if ever, mentioned, and one that is perhaps correlated with the structure of its bill. It seems to be especially given to feeding on the surface of the water im- mediately above the spot where Diving Ducks (Fuligulinse) are employing themselves beneath. On such occasions a pair of Shovelers may be watched, almost for the hour together, swimming in a circle, about a yard in diameter, their heads turned inwards towards its centre, their bills immersed vertically in the water, and engaged in sifting, by means of the long lamellse. before mentioned, the floating matters that are disturbed by their submerged allies and rise to the top. These gyrations are executed with the greatest ease, each Shoveler of the pair merely using the outer leg to impel it on its circular course, and to the observer the prettiest part of the performance is the precision with which
each preserves its relative distance from its comrade.
Four other species of the genus Spatula, all possessing the characteristic light blue "shoulders," have been described: one, S. platalea, from the southern parts of South America, having the head, neck, and upper back of a pale reddish brown, freckled or closely spotted with dark brown, and a dull bay breast with in- terrupted bars ; a second, S. capensis, from South Africa, much lighter in colour than the female of S. clypeata ; a third and a fourth, S. rhynchotis and S. variegata, from Australia and New Zealand respectively, these last much darker in general coloration, and the males possessing a white crescentic mark between the bill and the eye, very like that which is found in the South -American 151 ue -winged Teal (Qucrquedula cyanoptera), but so much resem- bling each other that their specific distinctness has been disputed by good authority. In these last two the sexual difference is well marked by the plumage ; but in the South-American and South- African species it would seem that both male and female have much the same appearance, as is the case with so many species of the restricted genus Anas, though this cannot yet be asserted with certainty.
SHREVEPORT, a city of the United States, capital of Caddo parish, Louisiana, on the west bank of Red River and near to Sodo Lake, is the eastern terminus of the Texas Pacific Railroad, 327 miles by rail north-west of New Orleans, with which it has regular steamboat communication. Situated in the heart of a very fruitful cotton-growing region, it is one of the principal cotton-markets in the south-west of the United States, and is the second commercial city in the State. It exports annually about 125,000 bales of cotton, and carries on a trade likewise in hides, wool, and tallow. It has factories for carriages, cotton gins, cotton-seed oil, soap, ice, sashes and blinds, and spokes and hubs, also foundries, machine-shops, a planing mill, saw-mills, and breweries. The town possesses among public buildings a handsome court-house and a cotton exchange. Red River is spanned by an iron bridge 20 feet wide and 1200 long. Shreveport, which was incorporated in 1839, had a population of 4607 in 1870 and of 8009 in 1880; in 1886 the population was estimated at 15,000.
SHREW, a general term applied to the species of the family Soricidae, order Insectivora (see vol. xv. p. 403), but in the British Isles more particularly to the common and to the lesser shrew (Sorex wlgaris, L., and S. pygrnxus, Pall.).
|
Common Shrew (Sorex vulgaris, L.). |
commoner of the two. It is a small animal about the size of the common mouse, which it somewhat resembles in the shape of its body, tail, and feet. But here the resemblance ends, for, unlike the mouse, it possesses a remarkably long and slender muzzle, with prominent nostrils, which project far beyond the lower lip ; the eyes are very small and al- most concealed by the fur ; the ears are wide and short, scarcely rising above the long hairs surrounding them, and are provided internally with a pair of deep folds, capable, when laid forward, of closing the entrance ; the tail, which is slightly shorter than the body (without the head), is quad- rangular in shape and clothed more or less densely with moderately long hairs, terminating in a short pencil (in old individuals these hairs become worn away, so that in some specimens the tail is almost quite naked) ; the feet are five-toed, the toes terminating in slender, acutely pointed, non-retractile claws. The dentition is very peculiar and characteristic : there are in all thirty- two teeth, tipped with deep crimson ; of these twelve only (the number is charac- teristic, with one exception only, of the family) belong to the lower jaw ; of the remaining twenty ten occupy each side of the upper jaw, and of these the first three, as they are implanted in the premaxillary bone, are termed incisors. The first incisor is a large tooth with a long anterior canine- like cusp and a small posterior one ; then follow two small unicuspidate teeth ; these are succeeded by three similar progressively smaller teeth, whereof the first has been called a canine and the other two premolars ; the next tooth, also a premolar, is a large multicuspidate tooth ; and this is followed by three molars, of which the third is small with a triangular crown. In the lower jaw we find on each side anteriorly three teeth corresponding to the seven anterior teeth above, of which the first is almost horizontal in direc
tion, its upper surface being marked by three notches, which
- ↑ Prior to that year there was perhaps only one district iu England wherein the Shoveler could be said to breed regularly, and thereto only a few pairs resorted. In 1885 there must have been a dozen counties in which it nested, and in some of them the pairs breeding might be reckoned by the score.
