THE SHELLDRAKE. 
67 
and the rabbits were contemporaneous, telling me that so long as 
the rabbits were numerous the shelldrakes bred regularly ; but 
since the former were all destroyed, the birds ceased to visit the 
island for that purpose. At the Kinnegar, near Holy wood, 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 hying 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 Boss- 
begh, on the coast of Kerry ; but the numbers have much de- 
creased of late years.f 
With reference to birds that fly inland when the flowing tide 
covers their feeding-ground and return at the ebb, Mr. St. John 
e 2 
* Mr. R. Ball. 
f Mr. R. Chute, 1849. 
