18 A NEW EAGLE 



singular exception to its adoption among the females 

 of British Anatidce. In the sheldrake, perhaps the 

 most conspicuously coloured of all our ducks, there is 

 very little difference in the plumage of male and female. 

 Each wears a splendid livery of chestnut, black, and 

 bottle-green on a ground of swan-like white, with 

 scarlet bills and legs. Such a garb is wholly unsuitable 

 for the privy purposes of incubation above ground, so 

 the female sheldrake creeps into rabbit burrows, lays 

 her eggs in them far beyond human arm's length, and 

 thus gratifies at once the two strongest impulses in the 

 feminine mind the maternal instinct and the love of 

 finery. It is not easy to decide whether subterranean 

 nidification was resorted to because of the brilliant 

 plumage, or whether the female sheldrake, unlike other 

 ducks, earned the privilege of wearing fine feathers in 

 consideration of laying her eggs out of sight. No such 

 reward has been bestowed on the sand-martin, which, 

 although incubating persistently underground, remains 

 the dingiest of all the Hirundinidce. This little bird 

 (Cotile riparia) is the earliest of its tribe to arrive, and 

 often attains a spurious fame in local prints by being 

 heralded as the ' first swallow.' 



V 



The crown of the collector's ambition is reached 



Anew when he adds a new species to the list of 



vertebrates. Each year renders this crown 



more difficult to attain ; for the forests and floods, the 



