THE SHELLDRAKE. 67 



and the rabbits were contemporaneous, telling me that so long as 

 the rabbits were numerous the shelklrakes bred regularly ; bat 

 since the former were all destroyed, the birds ceased to visit the 

 island for that purpose. At the Kinnegar, near Holywood, Belfast 

 Bay, it is said that they annually bred until a late period, when 

 the locality became too much frequented : — a pair, however, made 

 the attempt in a rabbit -burrow here in the summer of 1832, but 

 the nest was discovered and robbed of several eggs. 



Even on the extensive sands of the wild peninsula of the Horn, 

 in Donegal, where if these birds require the aid of rabbits to 

 burrow for them, there are thousands of such pioneers, I was 

 told, in the summer of 1832, that they had ceased to breed. The 

 shelldrake still continues to resort to the rabbit-holes in the 

 great sandy tract of Magilligan, on the coast of Londonderry. 

 Their eggs are sought after by the neighbouring peasantry, who 

 place them under hens, and when the young are reared, a ready 

 market is found for them among the gentry, by whom they are 

 kept for ornament. The nests are discovered by the old birds 

 being observed on their way to the chosen burrows, whence the 

 eggs are procured by being dug out. A sergeant employed on 

 the Ordnance Survey informed me that he had killed several 

 male birds here, chiefly in the breeding season, when it was very 

 easy to obtain shots at them, owing to their flying after his dog 

 in the manner of the lapwing, and not minding himself. He 

 stated, indeed, that at all seasons, and over the land, as well as 

 about the edge of the water, they thus flew after his dog : — the 

 greatest depth at which he had found their nests within the bur- 

 rows was six feet. Similar localities are thus resorted to on all 

 sides of the coast. In the south, there was one near Youghal ;^ 

 and the birds still breed in the rabbit-holes at Inch and Ross- 

 begh, on the coast of Kerry ; but the numbers have much de- 

 creased of late years. t 



With reference to bu-ds that fly inland when the flowing tide 

 covers their feeding-gi'ound and return at the ebb, Mr. St. John 



* Mr. R. Ball. f Mr. R. Phutp, 1840. 



F 2 



