THE BIRDS OF CUMBERLAND. 99 



show considerable craft in concealinsf themselves 

 by skulking under the foliage of a rank ditch or 

 beneath the margin of a creek. Upon the Duddon, 

 a practice is in vogue of shooting the later broods 

 at the beginning of August, chiefly during the early 

 morning, for during the day they frequent the mud 

 flats with the old birds. A few Sheldrakes are shot 

 by the punt gunners, or meshed in the flight nets 

 upon the Duddon, but on the whole the adults are 

 little persecuted, and the caution which they display, 

 in feeding on the open mud flats, and resting on 

 tidal waters during daylight, is quite superfluous. 

 Only a comparatively small number of Sheldrakes 

 pass the entire winter on our coast, but the breeding 

 birds return in early spring, at which time the pro- 

 minence at the base of the upper mandible is rising 

 in the adult drake. Considerable parties of non- 

 breeding birds may be observed on our estuaries 

 durino- the summer months. 



Inland, the Sheldrake has once occurred on 

 Tyndal Tarn, where a single bird, now preserved 

 in the neighbourhood, was shot a few years since. 



The nestling, in down, is lavender-white in 

 ground-colour ; the dark chocolate of the crown is 

 produced in a narrow band along the neck, passing 

 into a broad band on the back, and extending a 

 dark band over the shoulders, a similar band ex- 

 tending upwards from the thigh to the dorsal 

 region. 



In a feathered nestling shot on the Solway, in 

 August, 1884, the forehead, chin, lower neck and 

 under-parts are white ; the crown, hind neck, and 



