RUDDY SHIELDRAKE. 13.9 



then clucks like a lien. The organ of voice is unknown to 

 me. Each bird is very choice of its mate, for if the male is 

 killed the female will not leave the gunner till she has been 

 two or three times shot at. Quoting the Memoirs of the 

 Baron de Tott, who travelled in Tartary and the Crimea, 

 Latham says, the Tartars pretend that the flesh of this bird 

 is exceedingly dangerous : " I tasted it,^' says he, "and only 

 found it exceedingly good-for-nothing.'''' These birds go 

 in pairs during the summer ; at other times gregarious. 



In the adult male the beak is lead colour ; the irides yel- 

 lowish-brown ; head, cheeks, and chin buff colour, becoming- 

 darker, almost an orange-brown, towards the lower part of the 

 neck all round ; towards the bottom of the neck a ring of 

 black ; the back, tertials, breast, and all the under surfoce 

 of the body the same ; the point of the wing, and the wing- 

 coverts pale buffy-white ; wing-primaries lead grey, almost 

 black ; secondaries rather lighter in colour, the outer webs 

 short of the end, forming a brilliant green speculum ; rump 

 and tail-feathers lead-grey ; legs, toes, and their membranes 

 brownish-grey. 



Whole length twenty-five or twenty-six inches; the females 

 are rather smaller in size ; and the female in the Newcastle 

 Museum is thus described by Mr. Fox : — " The crown of the 

 head and the neck is of a mouse-grey ; the front, cheeks, and 

 throat pure white. The Avhole of the breast, belly, upper 

 part of the back, and scapular feathers, which are very long, 

 of a light ferruginous, which is the prevailing colour of the 

 bird. The feathers are broad at their end, semicircular, and 

 tipped with a lighter colour, which form semicircular lines all 

 over the body. The wing-coverts are white, which forms a 

 broad space on the wing ; below this the secondary quills are 

 green, forming a speculum ; the greater quills brown, darker 

 on the edges, which has occasioned them to be described as 

 black ; the same applies to the tail and back, which is nearly 



