SHELD DRAKE. 123 



In the neighbourhood of Yarmouth the long range 

 of sandhills, locally termed "Marrams," from the grasses 

 which bind the loose soil together, afforded in exten- 

 sive rabbit warrens every facility for the peculiar 

 nesting habits of this species, to which its extermina- 

 tion on that side of the county early in the present 

 century, if not before, is no doubt attributable ; since 

 Hunt, in his " British Ornithology," published in 1815, 

 remarks " they were formerly numerous at Winterton, 

 but being supposed to disturb the rabbits, considerable 

 pains were taken to destroy as many as possible."* And 

 this seems to have been done so effectually that all my 

 enquiries have failed to identify them since, durmg the 

 breeding season, with that locality. 



The most remarkable circumstance, however, con- 

 nected with the past history of the sheld drake in this 

 county is contained in the following note by Sir Thomas 

 Browne, in his "Account of Birds found in Norfolk" : — 



" Sheldrakes, Sheledracus Jonstoni. — Barganders, a 

 noble coloured fowl (vul;panserj , which herd in coney- 

 burrows about Norrold and other places;" and in a 

 letter to Dr. Merritt, in 1688 (Wilkin's ed., vol. i., p. 

 402) he again refers to this S]3ecies as "Burganders,t not 

 so rare as Turn [er] makes them, common in Norfolk, 

 so abounding in vast and spacious warrens." From 

 the absence in either case of any allusion to the coast- 

 warrens, one is naturally led to suppose that in his 

 time the sheld drake nested in localities some eighteen 

 or twenty miles from the nearest point of the coast, 

 in fact on the extensive rabbit warrens of the south- 



* Thompson, in his " Birds of Ireland," alleges that the destruc- 

 tion of rabbits on the Copeland islands led to the sheld drake also 

 deserting those localities for nesting purposes. 



f He uses the words J5ar-gander and jB«?'-gander, presumably a 

 contraction of burrow-gander, in reference to their nesting habits. 

 E 2 



