COMMON SHELDRAKE 163 
siderable expanse of low weedy rocks and salt pools, and 
this space is the constant resort of the Sheldrake. The 
birds are far from shy here, and may be readily observed 
dozing away their time in a party of ten or twelve on the 
tide edge, or flighting over their favourite pools with low 
quacks, looking very white on the wing. 
In the spring it is a common thing to observe them on 
the same ground in pairs, and they undoubtedly breed in 
the district, where their young broods have frequently been 
observed by Mr. Bailey, Mr. Turner, and others; about 
Langness, where Mr. T. W. Cubbon tells me he once saw 
at the same time three young families of eleven each; 
while Mr. J.C. Bacon and Mr. Teschemaker found their 
nests well concealed under the thick gorse covers of the 
Santon brows. Their numbers at any season, however, are 
not large. 
During the unparalleled weather of February 1895 a 
specimen was found dead on the shore at Douglas, and 
in May 1901 Mr. Graves and I saw two near a little 
piece of water on the Calf island; Mr. Graves observed 
six passing the Lhoob near Peel in 1904; apart from these 
occurrences and the lighthouse entries given below, I have 
no record of the Sheldrake out of the Castletown neigh- 
bourhood. In my many visits to the sandhills and flat 
tide spaces of the north I have never seen it; it would 
be strange if it is entirely absent there. 
Towuley, however, writing of the end of the eighteenth 
century, says (vol. i. p. 17) that he saw ‘several Shell 
Ducks at the bold point called Douglas Head.’ 
Sheldrakes are recorded in 1881 by Douglas Head light- 
house as flying south on 21st and 27th August. 
It is distributed over most of the British coasts. In 
Ireland the Sheldrake breeds in limited numbers, among 
other places in North Antrim and perhaps Down. On 
