SHIELDRAKE. 
Lin. Syst. i. p. 195, 4, 
Bris. Orn. vi. ft. 3 44. 9. PI. 33. 
Buff. Ois. ix. p. 205. 
Ran Sjm. p. Ho. A. 1 . 
Ard. 7 .ool. p. 299. D. 
Lath. Gen. Sj/n. iii. p. 50 4. 
This very beautiful aquatic bird is common in many parts of England, where 
it continues the whole year ; it breeds in rabbit burrows, in the neighbour- 
hood of the sea, in the choice of which it is very particular, as it will 
enter an hundred before it fixes on one perfectly to its mind. After its taking 
possession, die rabbits enter no more. 
The female deposites her eggs on the sand at the end of the burrow, they 
are in general from ten to fifteen in number ; she then wraps them in soft 
down, which she plucks from her breast. 
During the whole time of incubation, the male remains constantly on 
the sand bank : when the female quits her eggs to procure subsistence, the 
male supplies her place. The mother is particularly careful of her young, 
using many stratagems for their safety, when in danger, and has been 
known to carry them from place to place in her bill. She is rather smaller 
than the male, whom she resembles in colour, but the tints are less brilliant. 
As they very soon become domesticated, are easily reared, and con- 
stantly retain throughout the year the charming colours of their plumage, 
which is so conspicuous at a distance, and has so striking an effect, not only 
on the water, but on land, they are most deservedly considered as a very 
great ornament in every collection. 
This bird inhabits Northern Europe, even in the high latitude of Iceland, 
visits Sweden and the Orkneys in the winter, and returns in spring; is 
found in Asia, about the Caspian sea, and all the salt lakes of the Tartarian 
and Siberian deserts, and likewise in Kamtschatka: it is also met with in 
the Falkland Islands, and at Van Diemen’s Land. 
Anas Tadorna. 
La Tadorne. 
Sheldrake, or Burrow 
Duck. 
Shieldrake. 
