SHELD DRAKE. 129 



would leave the pond, and go some distance into a pas- 

 ture wliere they found rabbits' burrows, and they would 

 also lay in holes and roots of hollow trees. He allowed 

 them to hatch their own eggs, usually from eleven to 

 thirteen, and as soon as the duck brought her young to 

 the pond he had them fed with cockles^ scalded to open 

 them, and by throwmg a few in different places, by the 

 edge of the water, the ducklings would quickly learn to 

 know and follow the feeder, and after a time they 

 would learn to eat corn with the ducks. In confirma- 

 tion of his statement as to their breeding formerly 



are taken up to the 18th of June, after which they allow the birds 

 to incubate ; but they never rob a nest of all the eggs, leaving one 

 or two to avoid driving away the birds. Each person in the village 

 generally has a burrow, and they are scrupulously honest in not 

 taking each other's eggs. The female always covers her eggs with 

 down before leaving the nest." 



Naumann in his work " Ueber den Haus- 

 halt der nordischen Seevogel Europa's" 

 (p. 7), gives a diagram of the ground plan 

 of one of these artificial breeding places, 

 showing the communication between 

 twelve nest-chambers, all accessible by 

 one common entrance. In his time (1819) 

 sheld drakes were to bo seen " zu Tau- 

 senden" (by thousands) around Sylt. To 

 Mr. Alfred Newton, who, since the pub- 

 lication of Mr. Durnford's paper has met with a copy of this scarce 

 publication of the great German naturalist, I am not only indebted 

 for a sight of the work itself but for the opportunity of reproducing 

 the diagram above mentioned, in the accompanying wood-cut. 



» St. John ("Natural History and Sport in Moray," p. 73), 

 describes the food of this species as consisting " almost wholly of 

 email shell-fish, and more especially of cockles, which it swallows 

 whole. It extracts these latter from the sand by paddling or stamp- 

 ing with both its feet. This brings the cockle quickly to the 

 surface." He also states that he has seen tame birds of this species 

 do the same, when impatiently waiting for their food. 

 S 



