122 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



the county, nested here and there throughout the entire 

 range of sandhills bordering the Norfolk coast, which 

 are broken only by the lofty cliffs that extend some 

 twenty miles, between Happisburgh and Weyborne. On 

 the north and west of our extensive sea-board the flat 

 shores of the Wash between Lynn and Hunstanton, and 

 thence, in an easterly direction, to Blakeney and Cley, 

 the " meals " and mussel " scalps," bays,^ creeks, and 

 other tidal inlets, have afforded, at all seasons, the most 

 favourable feeding grounds. 



have before had occasion to refer (vol. ii., p. 52), occurs the follow- 

 ing entry amongst the " south and east country words." 



" Sheld, flecked, party colored, Suif. inde Sheldrake and Sheld- 

 f owle, Suff.'' That this is the real derivation of a name so variously 

 rendered and explained by authors (vide Yarrell) there can be no 

 question, and I am indebted to Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., for a refer- 

 ence to, and Canon Tristram for a sight of the scarce little volume 

 in which it occurs. In Sufliolk a cat of the colour generally called 

 " tortoise-shell," is spoken of as a " sheld-cat." See also the reprint 

 of Kay's 2nd. ed. of this work, 1691, by the "English Dialect 

 Society," 1874 :— 



In Kay's edition, also, of Willoughby's " Ornithology" the fol- 

 lowing passage occurs in reference to the term "sheld" in" the 

 description of this species : — " They are called by some burrow 

 ducks, because they build in coney burroughs. By others sheldrakes, 

 because they are parti-coloured ; and by others, it should seem, 

 burganders." For the same reason, evidently, Willoughby calls the 

 long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), the " swallow tailed sheldrake." 



* In Forby's vocabulary of East Anglia the term "bay-duck" is 

 applied to this species, the origin of the name being attributed to the 

 bright colour of the bird, as in a hay horse. But whilst the bay or 

 chesnut in no way predominates over the green and white of this 

 variegated species, I am inclined to believe that its partiality for 

 the " bays " and other indents of the coast has more to do with this 

 provincialism than mere tints of plumage ; and Holkham Bay, in 

 the very centre of its haunts, in Norfolk ; and Southwold, or Sole- 

 Bay, on the Suffolk coast, are instances of this term being used 

 locally in a geographical sense. 



