160 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
year, Mr. L. Jones, in 1892, dug out eight eggs from a 
burrow within ten yards of the look-out station. One 
or two broods are generally reared in the neighbour- 
hood of Heswall and Burton, in spite of the persecu- 
tion of the fisher-lads, who search eagerly for eggs 
and young birds. 
The Sheld Duck formerly bred on the sandhills near 
Hoylake, where Mr. W. E. Sharp took a nest in 1876. 
Writing to Dr. Dobie, he said, ‘This must have been 
one of the last occasions of its breeding, as that year 
the golf-links were extended over the ground which 
they frequented”! Mr. H. E. Smith, writing in 1865, 
said the bird then nested in the neighbourhood of 
Little Meols and on Caldy Hill, and that twenty years 
previously it bred along the whole range of sandhills 
on the Cheshire shore.? 
Dr. Dobie states that prior to 1873, nests were 
frequently found on the Mersey shore between Stanlow 
and Ince.! A few pairs still breed in that district, and 
Mr. A. Newman informs us that he took eggs at Stanlow 
Point in 1898. 
The Sheld Duck is seldom seen far from the sea, 
and we have never heard of its being taken inland in 
Cheshire. 
RUDDY SHELD DUCK. 
TADORNA CASARCA (Linnzeus). 
[There is no evidence that the Ruddy Sheld Duck has 
ever occurred in Cheshire in a wild state. The bird in 
the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, which was caught by 
a dog near that city in March 1887, had in all proba- 
bility escaped from captivity. ] 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 322. * H. E. Smith, op. cit. p. 242. 
