130 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



at Sandringham (now the residence of the Prince of 

 Wales), I may quote from Mr. Knox's " Game birds and 

 Wild Fowl" the following statement as to the extra- 

 ordinary docility exhibited by nestling sheld drakes, 

 even in a state of nature. " A friend of mine told me 

 that when at Sandringham, in Norfolk, he saw an entire 

 family of young sheld drakes emerge from a rabbit's 

 hole in which they had been bred, when summoned by 

 the whistle of the gamekeeper, partake greedily of the 

 food that was thrown to them, and return into the same 

 retreat when the repast was finished." Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney also informs me that he remembers in former 

 years being told by residents in that part of the county 

 that the sheld duck nested on Dersingham heath. 



Of our " home bred " birds, as those reared on the 

 coast sand-hills of this county may be termed,, to dis- 

 tinguish them from migratory visitants, some fall victims 

 to the gunners during the autumn months when dis- 

 persed along the coast, or as stragglers on inland waters, 

 for I have known young sheld drakes, killed in the 

 months of October and November, on Hickling Broad, 

 as well as on the tidal backwaters of Salthouse beach. 

 It is seldom, however, unless an unusually severe frost 

 sets in before the close of the year, that the migratory 

 flocks which yearly visit us accumulate on our northern 

 shores before January and February, their numbers at 

 such times depending much upon the severity of the 

 season ; but should a spell of hard weather set in about 

 that time they are found by the gunners in consider- 

 able flocks, frequenting the shores of the Wash and 

 those sandy flats -and indents of the coast from Hun- 

 stanton to Blakeney, the favourite resort in summer of 

 our native race.* 



* Sheld drakes are occasionally taken with other shore birds in 

 the nets placed for that purpose on the borders of the Wash, as 



