The male of this prettily marked species is somewhat larger than the mallard, measuring about two feet in length, three and a half in breadth, and weighing, commonly, two pounds ten ounces. The bill is red, with the nail and nostrils black; the upper mandible is broad, flat, and grooved on the edges towards the point, where it has rather a cast upwards; it is also depressed in the middle, and raised into a knob or tubercle at the base. The head and upper part of the neck are of a glossy dark or bottle green; the lower part of the neck, to the breast, is encircled with white, and joined by a broad band of bright orange bay, which is spread over, and covers the breast and shoulders. The back, wing-coverts, rump, upper tail-coverts, and sides of the belly, to the vent and tail, are white; a dusky stripe, tinged with rufous, runs along the middle from the breast, the whole length of the belly; part of the scapulars next the wings are black, and those next the body white; the bastard wing, and some of the first primary quills, are black; the exterior webs of the next adjoining ones are glossed with gold green, which forms the speculum or beauty-spot of the wings; this spot is bounded and partly covered by the orange webs of the three succeeding quill-feathers, which separate it from the scapulars. The tail is white, but some of its feathers are tipped with black; the legs pale red.
The female is less than the male, and her plumage is not so vivid and beautiful. She makes her nest, and rears her young, underground, in the rabbit-holes which are made in the sand-hills near the sea shore: it is chiefly formed of the fine down plucked from her own breast: she lays from twelve to sixteen roundish white eggs, and the incubation lasts about thirty days. During this time, the male, who is very attentive to his charge, keeps watch in the day-time, on some adjoining hillock, where he can see all around him, and which he quits only when impelled by hunger, to procure subsistence. The female also leaves the nest, for the same purpose, in the mornings and evenings, at which times the male takes his turn, and supplies her place. As soon as the young are hatched, or are able to waddle along, they are conducted, and sometimes carried in the bill, by the parents, to the full tide, upon which they launch without fear, and are not seen afterwards out of tide-mark until they are well able to fly; lulled by the roaring of the flood, they find themselves at home amidst an ample store of their natural food, which consists of sand-hoppers, sea-worms, &c. or small shell-fish, and the innumerable shoals of the little fry which have not yet ventured out into the great deep, but are left on the beach, or tossed to the surface of the water by the restless surge.
If this family in their progress from the nest to the sea, happen to be interrupted by any person, the young ones, it is said, seek the first shelter, and squat close down, and the parent birds fly off; then commences that truly curious scene dictated by an instinct analogous to reason, the same as has been already noticed in the mallard and the partridge; the tender mother drops at no great distance from her helpless brood, trails herself along the ground, flaps it with her wings, and appears to struggle as if she were wounded, in order to attract attention, and tempt a pursuit after her. Should these wily schemes, in which she is also aided by her mate, succeed, they both return when the danger is over, to their terrified motionless little offspring, to renew the tender offices of cherishing and protecting them.
These birds are sometimes watched to their holes, which are dug up to the nest, whence the eggs are taken and hatched, and the young reared by a tame duck.
In this way many gentlemen, tempted by the richness of their garb, have their ponds stocked with these beautiful birds; but as they are of a roving disposition, and are apt to stray, or to quit altogether such limited spots, it is generally found necessary to pinion or disable a wing to secure them. The sheldrake has been known to breed with the common duck; but it is not well ascertained whether the hybrids thus produced will breed again or not.
This species is dispersed in greater or less numbers, over the warm as well as the cold climates, in various parts of the world; they are met with as far north as Iceland in the spring, and in Sweden and the Orkney Islands in the winter. Captain Cook notices them, among other sea fowl, on the coast of Van Diemen’s Land; and they have been seen in great numbers at the Falkland Islands. Although they are not numerous on the British and the opposite shores, yet they are common enough in the British Isles, where they remain throughout the year, always in pairs, and occasionally straggle away from the sea coasts to the lakes inland.—Bewick.
Shell, s. The hard covering of anything; the external crust; the covering of a testaceous or crustaceous animal; the covering of the seeds of siliquous plants; the covering of kernels; the covering of an egg.
Shellfish, s. Fish invested with a hard covering, either testaceous, as oysters, or crustaceous, as lobsters.
Sherry, s. A kind of sweet Spanish wine.