i8o WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



seeing the prints of the bird's webbed feet near 

 the burrow. To ordinary observers it would be an 

 impossibihty to tell which burrow held a rabbit or 

 which held a Sheld-duck, but the lad knows, and 

 makes no mistakes about it. When the shooting 

 party that I have previously mentioned left the 

 dunes, that lad was not distressed, although he had 

 been guiding the fowlers all day. Judging him 

 by their own feelings, they had been solicitously 

 anxious about him for some time, but he told them 

 simply enough that he was used to it all the year 

 round, "trapesing the dunes" ; it did not make any 

 difference to him. 



The nest of the Sheld-duck is well supplied with 

 down, after the usual fashion of the duck family. 

 Directly the young birds are fit, off they are taken 

 to the tide, and then you may say good-bye to them. 

 Sometimes the eggs are taken just before the full 

 complement is laid, and they are hatched out under 

 either hens or ducks. As this bird is very hand- 

 some and carries itself well, it is in some request for 

 ornamental waters. But even these young birds are 

 "kittle cattle," and require a lot of looking after. 

 One of its local names, that of Sly-goose, gives the 

 clue at once to its character, for it is a bird which 

 requires a lot of getting at. Although the dunes 

 and the rough, broken, sandy pastures, sprinkled 

 with stone and dwarf furze, are its usual habitat, the 

 Sheld-duck flights the shores to feed, its food being 

 little different to that of the other birds : there are 

 no bounds as to where you may see fowl, especially 



