268 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



during the winter months this veteran used to tap with her 

 bill at the front door to be let in for her evening meal, which 

 having been consumed, she made her way to a favourite corner 

 in the fowl-house. But the wild Sheldrake is eminently of a 

 cautious disposition, even in the breeding time when most birds 

 forego a large share of their dread of man. During the summer 

 of 1890, Mr. Farren, the Eavenglass fisherman, was able to 

 watch the movements of one of these shy birds with a telescope, 

 since she nested among some sandhills within full view of his 

 cottage door. He assured me that this bird, when sitting on 

 her eggs, usually left her nest for two periods of about half an 

 hour each in the morning and in the evening ; that she rejoined 

 her male companion, and that they flew off and fed together. 

 When the female had satisfied her hunger, she invariably re- 

 turned to her charge. I have sailed close up to a brood of 

 well-feathered Sheldrakes, off Bowness, and though an old bird 

 in the company took wing and settled out of gunshot, the 

 young only swam into a wedge formation, sinking rather deep 

 in the water, their necks appearing in consequence rather long 

 and snake-like. But try to approach Sheldrakes in the open, 

 even when on the feed, and you will find that they will not 

 often allow themselves to be endangered. They prefer to feed 

 with an ebbing tide, and avoiding the higher ridges of sand, 

 which the wind soon dries, obtain their shell-fish chiefly on the 

 lower stretches of sand which are well watered, and being of a 

 more firm and clay-like composition than the rest, retain 

 perhaps half an inch of water on their surface. They feed in 

 little parties, but by preference in flocks of twenty or thirty 

 birds, running eagerly hither and thither, with necks eagerly 

 outstretched, and bodies arching into sinuous curves. If 

 satisfied, and clustering together on the sands or at the marsh 

 edge, they appear at a distance and to the naked eye to be 

 nearly as white as Sea-gulls, and very white in flight. When 

 the tides are running high and the Sheldrakes find their 

 favourite resting-places covered, they may usually be seen 

 flighting briskly, and at a considerable height, above their 

 favourite estuary. In boisterous weather they often shift from 

 exposed situations to more sheltered feeding-grounds, and at 



