RUDDY SHIELDRAKE. 233 



to be domesticated, by rearing the young under tame 

 Ducks, but without success, as they remain wild, effecting 

 their escape the first opportunity ; and if the old ones are 

 taken and confined, they lay their eggs in a dispersed 

 manner, and never sit. The voice of the bird when flying 

 is not unlike the note of a clarionet : at other times it 

 cries like a Peacock, especially when kept confined ; and now 

 and then clucks like a hen. The organ of voice is unknown 

 to me. Each bird is very choice of its mate, for if the 

 male is killed the female will not leave the gunner till 

 she has been two or three times shot at. Quoting the 

 Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, who travelled in Tartary 

 and the Crimea, Latham says, the Tartars pretend that 

 the flesh of this bird is exceedingly dangerous : "I tasted 

 it," says he, " and only found it exceedingly good-for- 

 nothing" These birds go in pairs during the summer ; 

 at other times gregarious. 



In the adult male the beak is lead colour; the irides 

 yellowish-brown ; head, cheeks, and chin buff colour, be- 

 coming darker, almost an orange-brown, towards the lower 

 part of the neck all round ; towards the bottom of the 

 neck a ring of black ; the back, tertials, breast, and all the 

 under surface of the body the same ; the point of the wing, 

 and the wing-coverts pale buffy white ; wing-primaries 

 lead grey, almost black ; secondaries rather lighter in 

 colour, the outer webs short of the end, forming a bril- 

 liant green speculum ; rump and tail-feathers lead-grey ; 

 legs, toes, and their membranes brownish-grey. 



Whole length twenty-five or twenty-six inches ; the fe- 

 males are rather smaller in size ; and the female in the 

 Newcastle Museum is thus described by Mr. Fox : u The 

 crown of the head and the neck is of a mouse-grey ; the 

 front, cheeks, and throat pure white. The whole of the 



