SHELD DEAXE. 131 



Mr. Wells, who has had more than thirty years expe- 

 rience as a shore gunner in that part of Norfolk, tells 

 me that the boat gunners kill the largest number of 

 these birds in February and the beginning of March ; 

 and in the severe winter of 1870-71, he saw from four 

 to five hundred in one day, in the month of February. 

 This agrees, also, with notes on this and other coast 

 species received from Mr. A. W. Partridge, who was 

 shooting in the neighbourhood of Hunstanton during 

 that exceptionally inclement season. At such times 

 many of these birds are exhibited for sale in the poul- 

 terers' shops at Lynn, and are thence sent to the 

 London markets. My own notes for the last twenty 

 years of specimens in the Norwich market, or in the 

 hands of our bird-stuffers, are strongly confirmatory of 

 these statements from our coast gunners, the majority of 

 the birds entered in my journal having been seen in 

 the months of January, February, and March. I have 

 two or three records of sheld drakes killed in the 

 winter months on Hickling Broad and one at Stalham ; 

 at Fritton, near Yarmouth, also, they are occasionally 

 seen with other fowl. In February, 1869, Mr. Frere 

 tells me he saw a small flock of six in Fritton decoy. 

 On Breydon, as Mr. Fielding Harmer informs me, the 

 largest number he ever saw together was a flock of 

 nine, during hard weather, in January, 1860, smaller 

 parties of from two to four appearing there generally 

 every year in March, April and May. Lord Kirnberley 

 includes this species amongst the fowl occasionally 



described in my account of the dunlin (vol. ii., p. 376, and in the 

 Introduction to vol i., p. xlvi.) 



A very intelligent keeper at the " high " lighthouse, at Low- 

 estoft, showed me in 1865 a stuffed sheld drake, a fine old male, 

 which had flown against the windows of the Offord Light in the 

 previous winter, and was found dead at the foot of the building. 



