838 SHELDER—SHOE-BILL 
SHELDER (Icel. Skjéldr=piebald), a local name for the 
OYSTER-CATCHER (cf. SCOLDER, p. 817, and SHELD-DRAKE, p. 835). 
SHELL-APPLE, a name for the CRossBILL, but occasionally 
for the CHAFFINCH, though in that case SHELLY is commoner. 
SHEPSTER, a local name for the STARLING (cf. CHEPSTER), 
possibly an abbreviated form of Sheep-stare, from the bird's habit 
of accompanying flocks of sheep. 
SHERIFF'S MAN, a nickname of the GoLDFINCH, from its 
gaudy colouring. 
SHIRL ( = Shrill, cf. SuRiKE), a name for the Mistletoe- THRUSH. 
SHOE-BILL or SHOE-BIRD, renderings of the Arabic name 
Alu-markub (Father of a Shoe) that have been given by travellers 
to one of the most remarkable-looking of Central-African birds, 
Baleniceps rex, also called by some writers the Whale-headed Stork 
—the bird’s huge bill,1 in shape not unlike a whale’s head, and 
tipped with a formidable hook, suggesting all these names. It 
was first brought to Europe by Mr. Mansfield Parkyns? from the 
White Nile, and was regarded by Gould (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1851, pp. 
1, 2, Aves, pl. xxxv.), who described and figured it, as an abnormal 
Pelican. This view was disputed by Reinhardt (op. cit. 1860, pp. 
377-380) and wholly dispelled by Parker (Trans. Zool. Soc. iv. pp. 
269-351, pls. 64-67), though these two authors disagreed as to its 
affinities, the former placing it near Scopus (HAMMER-HEAD) with 
the Srorks, and the latter assigning it to the Herons. More 
recent views either halt between these two opinions (Reichenow, 
Journ. fiir Orn. 1877, p. 231; Stejneger, Stand. Nat. Hist. iv. p. 
171), or incline to the latter (Fiirbringer, Untersuchungen, p. 1565 ; 
Beddard Proc. Zool. Soc. 1888, p. 289; Gadow, Thier-reich, Vogel, 
System. Th. p. 137). There should be no hesitation in regarding 
it as the representative of a distinct Family Balzxnicipitide, on 
account of its many structural peculiarities, and in singularity of 
aspect few birds surpass it, with its gaunt grey figure, some five 
feet in height, its large head surmounted by a little curled tuft, 
' Jardine (Contr. Orn. 1851, pl. 68, p. 11) gave a full-sized figure of it. 
* This traveller only incidentally mentions (Life in Abyssinia, ii. pp. 304, 
305) the bird, and indecd was never in the country it inhabits. His specimens, 
according to Von Heuglin (ut infra), were bought of a slave-dealer in Khartoum, 
whither they had been brought. It is reasonably supposed that to this species 
belonged the extraordinary bird, as big as a young Camel, with a Dill like a 
Pelican’s, though wanting a pouch, which Ferdinand Werne (Laped. zur 
Enideck. der Quellen des Weissen Nil, p. 143) tells us was seen by his people, 
15th December 1840, while he was asleep, and they were unwilling to awaken 
him. His countryman Baron F. W. von Miiller (Nawmannia, 1852, i. p. 85) 
was more fortunate, in that in 1848 he saw two, but was unable to procure 
them. On his return to Khartoum he saw in a collection the two specimens 
afterwards bought by Mr. Parkyns, for which a high price was asked. 
