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noun

Sheldrake n.

(Zool.) Any one of several species of large Old World ducks of the genus Tadorna and allied genera, especially the European and Asiatic species. (Tadorna cornuta syn. Tadorna tadorna), which somewhat resembles a goose in form and habit, but breeds in burrows. Note: It has the head and neck greenish black, the breast, sides, and forward part of the back brown, the shoulders and middle of belly black, the speculum green, and the bill and frontal bright red. Called also shelduck, shellduck, sheldfowl, skeelduck, bergander, burrow duck, and links goose. Note: The Australian sheldrake (Tadorna radja) has the head, neck, breast, flanks, and wing coverts white, the upper part of the back and a band on the breast deep chestnut, and the back and tail black. The chestnut sheldrake of Australia (Casarca tadornoides) is varied with black and chestnut, and has a dark green head and neck. The ruddy sheldrake, or Braminy duck (Casarca rutila), and the white-winged sheldrake (Casarca leucoptera), are related Asiatic species.

Any one of the American mergansers. Note: The name is also loosely applied to other ducks, as the canvasback, and the shoveler.

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Etymology of 'Sheldrake'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sheldrake" Quotes from Famous Books

... remember that!" he muttered, and swaggered away. "I'm a dog, a filthy cur! But I'll have my day!" he growled to Sheldrake. ...

— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... The sheldrake ducks also have a fleshy growth on the bill. A turkey gobbler, when his vernal wedding dress is complete, is indeed a remarkable sight. The mass of wattles, usually so gray and shrunken, is now of most vivid hues—scarlet, ...

— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... in the months of May and June. It is also a resident of the far north, breeding abundantly in Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland. It is liberally supplied with names, as Red-Breasted Goosander or Sheldrake, Garbill, ...

— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... Moll the uncannie carline of Blawhooly: his boat ran round and round in the centre of the Solway,—everybody said it was enchanted,—and down it went head foremost: and had nae Jock been a swimmer equal to a sheldrake, he would have fed the fish; but I'll warrant it sobered the lad's speech; and he never reckoned himself safe till he made auld Moll the present of a new kirtle ...

— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... seldom, but on a few occasions paid a brief visit to the vicinity; the herons that frogged along the boggy shore of the lake and built their nests in the tops of the Foy Brook pines; the wild geese that flew northward in a wide V, early in the spring and again southward in October; the sheldrake and the black ducks which Addison had such success shooting every fall, in the old mill pond, beyond the east wood-lot; the swift-diving loons of the blue Pennesseewassee, that flew heavily across the ...

— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... received your Letter the other day. And am happy to hear you are well. I hope you will find Newstead in as favorable a state as you can wish. I wish you would write to Sheldrake to tell him to make haste ...

— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... ... with flights and songs and screams that answer those of the wild pigeon and high-hold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and red-shouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white ibis and Indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends both mother's and father's. To him enter the essences of the real things and past and present events—of the enormous diversity of temperature and agriculture ...

— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... had happened he seized his bow to beat her; when she saw him seize his bow to beat her she ran down to the river, and jumped in to escape death at his hands, though it should be by drowning. But as she fell into the water she became a sheldrake duck. And to this day the marks of the red stain are to be seen on her feet and feathers. [Footnote: Related to me by Noel Josephs, a Passamaquoddy. Notwithstanding its resemblance to Blue Beard, it is probably in every detail a very old Indian ...

— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... do really thus erect their feathers. I am now at work on expression in animals of all kinds, and birds; and if you have any hints I should be very glad for them, and you have a rich wealth of facts of all kinds. Any cases like the following: the sheldrake pats or dances on the tidal sands to make the sea-worms come out; and when Mr. St. John's tame sheldrakes came to ask for their dinners they used to pat the ground, and this I should call an expression of hunger and impatience. ...

— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

Words linked to "Sheldrake" : hooded merganser, fish duck, Mergus serrator, Tadorna, hooded sheldrake, red-breasted merganser, Mergus merganser americanus, sawbill, genus Tadorna, duck, American merganser, Mergus, Mergus merganser, merganser, genus Mergus, shelduck, Lophodytes cucullatus, smew, sea duck, Mergus albellus