STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SHELDRAKE 195 



I have had the rare good fortune to find a number 

 of pairs breeding at one spot on private enclosed 

 land, where I could approach them very closely, 

 and watch them any day for hours at a stretch, 

 studying their curious sign- language, about which 

 nothing, to my knowledge, has hitherto been written. 

 There were about thirty pairs, and their breeding- 

 holes were mostly rabbit-burrows scattered about 

 on a piece of sandy ground, about an acre and a 

 half in extent, almost surrounded by water. When 

 I watched them the birds were laying ; and at 

 about ten o'clock in the morning they would begin 

 to come in from the sea in pairs, all to settle down 

 at one spot ; and by creeping some distance at the 

 waterside among the rushes, I could get within 

 forty yards of them, and watch them by the hour 

 without being discovered by them. In an hour 

 or so there would be forty or fifty birds forming 

 a flock, each couple always keeping close together, 

 some sitting on the short grass, others standing, 

 all very quiet. At length one bird in the flock, a 

 male, would all at once begin to move his head in 

 a slow, measured manner from side to side, like a 

 pianist swaying his body in time to his own music. 

 If no notice was taken of this motion by the duck 

 sitting by his side dozing on the grass, the drake, 



