84 Manual of the Game Birds of India. 



are for the most part mild enough in' 

 temperature for it to be a resident, but 

 in the northern portion of its range it is a 

 migratory bird arriving in March and 

 leaving in October. It is almost exclu- 

 sively a marine species, breeding in 

 Europe on sandy coasts ; but in Asia 

 east of the Caspian, in Turkestan and 

 Mongolia, it frequents inland salt lakes, 

 and in Eastern Siberia it is confined to 

 the salt steppes. In its winter quarters 

 in India, though it sometimes visits the 

 broads and large sheets of fresh water, 

 it always seems to prefer the coast. In 

 England ft is rarely if ever seen inland, 

 always preferring the sandy coasts, 

 especially where the sand is blown into 

 hills, locally called ' links ' or * dunes.' 

 Nowhere is the Sheldrake more abundant 

 than on the west coast of Denmark, where 

 it may almost be said to live in a state of 

 semi-domestication, the peasants making 

 artificial burrows in the sand-hills and 

 robbing the nests systematically until the 

 middle of June, when they allow the 

 birds to begin to sit. Under these circum- 

 stances it may almost be said to breed in 

 colonies, but in a truly wild state it is 

 never known to do so. 



" The Sheldrake is a somewhat shy 



