SHELD DKAKE. 



127 



Hunstanton, to the harbour at Cley. When staying at 

 Hunstanton, in June, 1863, I saw single birds of this 

 species on one or two occasions, near Holme point, 

 passing from the sand-hills to their feeding grounds 

 at low water; and in the same neighbourhood, Mr. 

 Wells informs me, a pair still nested in 1874. At 

 Brancaster, in 1866, Mr. F. Norgate found the re- 

 mains of egg shells, at the mouth of a rabbit's 

 burrow, apparently those of the sheld duck, in the 

 month of July ; and young birds, as I learn from Mr. 

 Beverley Leeds, were taken there both in that and 

 succeeding years ; and so late as the year 1874 Mr. 

 Wells knew of three pairs that frequented that part of 

 the coast throughout the summer. In 1853 Mr. Thos. 

 Southwell found empty egg shells of this species on the 

 66 meals " about Wells, and was informed that a pair or 

 two nested there every season; but in August, 1872, 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., ascertained that none had bred 

 there that summer, but was told by a local gunner 

 that in the previous year he had taken an old bird and 

 eleven eggs out of one nest hole. At Blakeney, in 1872, 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., found four young birds in 

 the channel early in August, the remains of a much 

 larger brood observed earlier in the season. Another 

 pair were also said to have nested in the same locality ; 

 and in May of that year he saw a pair of old birds in 

 the channel at Cley. As late, also, as the summer of 

 1874, I had reliable information that they gtill resort 

 to the sand-hills on the Blakeney beach, the extreme 

 eastern limit of the sheld duck's nesting range on the 

 Norfolk coast, and this is the more satisfactory since, 

 prior to the passing of the " Sea Birds' Preservation 

 Act," in 1869, which affords them protection between 

 the 1st of April and the 1st of August, my notes show 

 several instances of their being killed at Blakeney 

 and Salthouse, as well as on Breydon, in April and 



