BUDDY SHELD-DUCK 89 



buff; patch in front and below the eye, throat, breast and 

 abdomen, white ; top of back and scapulars, brownish ; 

 wing-coverts, chiefly white, with a little green on the 

 speculum ; primaries, blackish ; upper surface of tail- 

 feathers, chiefly brownish, except the outer ones, which 

 are pure white. 



BEAK. Kich red ; knob at the base same colour ; this 

 knob is absent in the female. 



FEET. Warm flesh-colour. 



IBIDES. Brown. 



AVERAGE MEASUREMENTS. 



TOTAL LENGTH 25 in. 



WING 13 



BEAK 2'5 



TAESO-METATARSUS ... ... 2*2 ,, 



EGG 2-75 X 1'9 in. 



RUDDY SHELD-DUCK. Tadorna casarca (Linnaeus). 



Coloured Figures. Gould, Birds of Great Britain,' vol. v, 

 pi. 12 ; Dresser, ' Birds of Europe,' vol. vi, pi. 421 ; 

 Lilford, ' Coloured Figures,' vol. vii, pi. 31. 



A remarkable immigration of Kuddy Sheld-Ducks to the 

 British Isles, comparable to the spasmodic visits or 

 ' irruptions ' of Pallas's Sand-grouse, took place in 1892. 1 

 Previous to that date, this Duck had been seldom obtained, 

 most of the so-called British-taken specimens being escaped 

 captives from aquatic preserves. The first recorded bird 

 killed in our Isles came from Blandford, in Dorset, in 1776. 

 It is preserved in the Newcastle Museum (Saunders). The 

 Buddy Sheld-Duck, being a south-eastern species, rarely 

 reaches our shores on migration ; according to Mr. Saunders 

 "it is almost unknown to the north of the Alps and Car- 

 pathians." Not exclusively marine in its habits, it often 



1 The reader is referred to a most interesting account of the migration 

 of numbers of Buddy Sheld-Ducks to the British Isles, written by Mr. 

 Ogilvie, and published in the 'Zoologist' for 1892. Mr. Ussher, in 

 the ' Birds of Ireland,' gives a detailed list of the immigration to that 

 country in 1892. 



