128 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



May ; birds just returning in the perfection of breeding 

 plumage to their nesting quarters.^ 



Writing of the nesting habits of this species on the 

 coast sand-hills of Norfolk, Messrs. Sheppard and 

 Whitear remark that its nest '^ is discovered by the 

 print of its feet on the sand, and is, therefore, most 

 easily found in calm weather ; for in windy weather the 

 driving sand soon obliterates the impression. The old 

 bird is sometimes taken by a snare set at the mouth of 

 the burrow." Mr. Wells, from his own experience of 

 late years, also informs me that their nests are most 

 commonly found by watching the drake, when flying 

 round and over the hole where the duck is sitting, 

 calling her off to feed early in the morning, and having 

 successfully reared the young birds when he resided at 

 Sedgeford, from eggs procured on the coast in that 

 neighbourhood, he has kindly furnished me with the 

 following particulars : — His first sitting of eggs were 

 hatched under a hen, and the young after two years 

 (sheld ducks do not pair the first year) bred in some 

 holes he had purposely made by the side of his pond to 

 represent rabbit's burrows. f Sometimes, however, they 



* The demand for such young ones as can be hatched out under 

 hens, from the attractiveness of their plumage when semi-domes- 

 ticated on fresh water ponds or lakes, is, of course, a strong incen- 

 tive to the wholesale robbery of their nests. 



f Mr. H. Dumford, in an interesting paper on the Ornithology 

 of the "North Frisian Islands and adjacent coast" ("Ibis," 1874, 

 p. 403) describes this species as livjng in a semi-domesticated state, 

 both on the islands and mainland. " The natives make artificial 

 burrows in the sand-hillocks, and cut a hole in the turf over the 

 passage, covering it with a sod so as to disclose the nest when eggs 

 are required. Several females lay indiscriminately in the nest. 

 They are very tame, and suffer themselves to be taken by hand 

 while sitting. Each burrow has two openings, and is made circular 

 in shape. There are sometimes as many as a dozen or fifteen nests 

 in a hillock within the compass of eight or nine yards. The eggs 



