104 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



tims to that fresh-water tyrant, the pike. A 

 party of shieldrakes were kept for many years 

 on a trout stream in Sussex, until in process of 

 time the pike worked their way up from the 

 deeper parts of the river, and soon afterwards the 

 ducklings began gradually to disappear from the 

 surface, until at last not a single young bird was 

 left. The old ones then wandered down the 

 stream, and their subsequent fate was unknown. 



Although generally classed with the ducks, 

 the shieldrake would appear in some respects 

 to connect that portion of the anatidce with the 

 geese. Like the latter it is of considerable size, 

 and there is little or no difference in the plumage 

 of the male and female. 



Many kinds of wild ducks and geese, which 

 have of late years been admitted into the cata- 

 logue of British birds, can only be regarded as 

 very rare or accidental visitors. Others, again, 

 whose usual habitat is in the remote regions of 

 Asia, Africa, or America, having been occasion- 

 ally shot or captured in different parts of Eng- 

 land, the circumstance is frequently noised abroad 

 a paragraph recording the occurrence appears 

 in the local papers : the possessor of the fancied 

 prize pens a highly coloured and plausible notice 

 to the editor of some metropolitan journal : all at- 

 tendant circumstances that might militate against 



