264 
ai.len's naturalist’s LIBRARV. 
Erase in Great Britain.— The Ruddy Sheld-Duck has occurred 
in all three kingdoms, but can only be considered a rare and 
occasional vi.sitor, while some of the records of its capture 
are doubtless founded on escaped specimens, as the bird is 
frequently kept in confinement in this country. In 1892 
however, there was a large immigration of wild birds, and a 
very interesting record of the visit of the Ruddy Sheld-Duck 
to Great Britain in the summer of 1892 has been published by 
Mr. F. Menteith Ogilvie in the “Zoologist” for that year (pp. 
392-398). Flocks consisting of as many as ten to fourteen 
birds, in one instance twenty, were observed between the 
middle of June and the middle of September, and there were 
probably many olhcns. Mr. Ogilvie surmises that it was from 
the South Russian habitat of the species that the immigra- 
tion occurred. “Those that visited this country, being non- 
breeders, who probably accompanied the older birds on their 
noi them journey in the spring, were driven away by them from 
the breeding-grounds, lost their bearings, and, crossing Russia 
and the North Sea, found themselves on our inhospitable 
shores.” Mr. Ogilvie, however, notices that in every specimen 
killed, the inner secondaries were extremely worn, which looks 
as if the birds had nested, and seeing that the Ruddy Sheld- 
J)uck IS lather an early breeder, with the young swimminEc 
about on the 30th of May (cf. Seebohm, Brit. B. iii. p. 524) 
theie IS nothing to prevent the British specimens, at the end 
ot June, from being birds which had bred in South-eastern 
Furope, and migrated north-west instead of south. 
Eange outside the British Islands. — In Asia the Ruddy Sheld- 
Duck breeds as far north as the Common Sheld-Duck, but in 
Europe it is a bird of the Mediterranean Sub-region, extend- 
ing eastwards to Southern and Eastern Siberia, and Moncrolia 
In winter it visits Northern Africa, India, and China. 
Habits.— However gregarious this species may be in winter 
the observations of naturalists tend to prove that, during the 
breeding season, it is only found in isolated pairs usually 
selecting holes of cliffs as its nesting-site, and often at a great 
height. Ihus the species has been found breeding in Ladak 
and Tibet, at an elevation of 13,000 to 16,000 feet above 
the sea. The young birds are tended with great care by the 
