PLATE I 

 SHELD-DUCK. Tadorna cornuta 



June i9///, 1893. Coming along the Culbin Sands one afternoon with my 

 camera, I saw a Sheldrake with her brood of newly hatched young ones 

 making for the sea. When she caught sight of me she at once led them 

 back to the burrow where they had been hatched, and disappeared down it 

 with them. The old drake meanwhile flew round and round me whistling 

 and uttering a deep ' kow-kow.' I stole quietly up to the hole; two of the 

 ducklings were crouching at the mouth of it, and I could just see the white 

 breasts of some of the others far down inside. I cautiously set up my 

 camera and got a very good photograph of them. 



I then withdrew to some distance and lit my pipe, watching through the 

 bents from the top of a small sandhill. In about a quarter of an hour the 

 drake came flying round and round whistling and calling to his mate. After 

 seeing that all was apparently safe he alighted about ten or twelve yards 

 from the hole and began running backwards and forwards calling. Presently 

 a little duckling ran out of the hole, then another and another, till they were 

 all out, the duck appearing last, shaking the sand from her plumage. The 

 whole family then made off to the sea, and I watched them disappear over a 

 large sandhill in the distance, leaving their tracks behind them in the soft sand. 



In 1887 I carried home nine young Sheldrakes from the Culbins and put 

 them on an ornamental pond near the house. A Mallard had brought out 

 her young then, but they had all been killed by the swans, who, having a 

 nest, jealously guarded the pond from all intruders. My astonishment was 

 great, when I visited the pond next day to see how the Sheldrakes had fared, to 

 observe the old Mallard swimming along beside the overhanging bushes with 

 all the little Sheldrakes in a bunch following her. They were much too 

 smart at diving for the swans to catch them, and the Mallard tended them 

 till they could fly, when they disappeared one by one, except a single 

 individual who had been pinioned. 



75 



