

COMMON SIIELLDRAKE. 237 



breadth. Incubation is said to last thirty days, during 

 which time the male watches near at hand, taking his 

 turn upon the eggs morning and evening, while his mate 

 goes off to pick up her hasty meal. When the young are 

 hatched they follow the parents, and in some situations 

 are even carried by them in their bills to the water, where 

 they soon learn to feed and take care of themselves. Their 

 food is various, namely, seaweed, bivalve and other shelled 

 mollusca, sandhoppers, sea-worms, marine insects, and the 

 remains of shell-fish. I have found the stomach of this 

 species filled with very minute bivalve and univalve mol- 

 lusca only, as though they had sought no other food ; a 

 predilection which may have given rise to the name of 

 Shell-drake ; or it may be so called, because it is parti- 

 coloured ; and the term Shield-drake may have had its 

 origin in the frequent use made of this bird in Heraldry : 

 the family of Brassey, of Hertfordshire,* and several other 

 families in this country, bearing in their arms this bird 

 on their shield, and sometimes as a crest. In captivity 

 they feed on grain of any sort, soaked bread, and vege- 

 tables. Their note is a shrill whistle. The flesh of the 

 Shieldrake is coarse and bad, dark in colour, and un- 

 pleasant both in smell and flavour. 



Montagu and other writers have mentioned that this 

 species does not breed readily in confinement. The fol- 

 lowing hint may be of service. When the Zoological So- 

 ciety first had a pair of these birds, they exhibited no 

 signs of breeding, but their natural habits being consulted 

 by putting them into another place, where there was a 

 bank of earth, into which some holes were purposely made, 

 the birds immediately took to one of the holes and went 



* Brassey bears quarterly, per fess indented sable and argent, in the first 

 quarter, a Shieldrake. Crest on a mount, a Shieldrake. 



