520 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TADORNA CORNUTA. 

 COMMON SHELDRAKE. 



(PLATE 66.) 



Anas tadorna, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 344 (1760) ; Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 195 (1766). 

 Anas coruuta, S. G. Gmel. JReise JRussl. ii. p. 185, pi. 18 (1774) ; et auctorum 



plurimorum (Gray}, (Blasius), (Heuglin), (Salvadori), (Dresser), (Saunders), 



&c. 



Tadorna tadorna (Linn.}, Fleming, Phil. Zool. ii. p. 260 (1822). 

 Tadorna familiaris, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 564. 



Tadorna bellonii, Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. 2, p. 72, pi. 45 (1824). 

 Tadorna vulpanser, Flem. Brit. An. p. 122 (1828). 

 Vulpanser tadorna (Briss.), Keys, fy Bias. Wirb. Eur. p. Ixxxiv (1840). 

 Tadorna gibbera, Brehm, Vb'y. Deutschl. p. 856 (1831). 

 Tadorna cornuta (S. G. Gmel.}, Gray, Hand-l. B. iii. p. 80 (1871). 



The Sheldrake, sometimes called the Burrow-Duck, because it breeds in 

 a hole like a rabbit-burrow, has had its name variously corrupted into 

 Shield-drake, Shield-duck, Shell-duck, and Sheld-duck. The name is 

 derived from the low German Scheldrak, which may possibly refer to the 

 shield-like protuberance at the base of the upper mandible of the bill ; but 

 Willughby and Ray stated, more than two hundred years ago, that they 

 were called " Sheldrakes because they are particoloured/' In Norfolk 

 it is provincially known as the Bargander, a corruption of Willughby 

 and Ray's Bergander, a name borrowed by them from Aldrovandus, and 

 obviously derived from the high German Bergente, though some writers 

 interpret it as Burgander, " bur " being a common north-country term for 

 a burrow. 



The Common Sheldrake is a resident in the British Islands, and is found 

 more or less numerously on all suitable parts of the coast, but is much 

 scarcer in the south of England during the summer than elsewhere. 

 Owing to the persecution which it has suffered it has become much rarer 

 in many districts than was formerly the case, and it is now most abundant 

 in little-frequented districts or in places where it is protected. In winter 

 it often wanders from its usual summer haunts, and at that season is more 

 universally dispersed. 



The Common Sheldrake is an Old- World species of Duck, but it breeds 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A single example has been obtained on 

 the Faroe Islands. On the Norwegian coasts it breeds up to about lat. 

 69, but in the Baltic it is not known to breed north of lat. 60. It 

 occurs in the Ural Mountains about as far north as lat. 56, but in Siberia 

 it does not breed north of the. valley of the Amoor. South of these 



