Duck for Christmas
This year's Christmas card of the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust, which owns the best ring of bird sanctuaries in the world, is published early because many purchasers of the series are found in India, Australasia, Africa and America. It depicts almost the most salient and one of the most charac- teristic birds of East Anglia, the Sheldrake. The charming coloured picture of a pair, looking down on the saltings from a sandy and marram-dotted dune, illustrates a curious point in the natural history of birds. Though the drake has one distinguishing mark, the general colouring of the two sexes is similar ; and not in one but many species, where such similarity is found, the cock as well as the hen plays a parental, almost a maternal part. For example, there is no better parent than the cock partridge, which is barely distinguish- able from the hen, and there are few worse parents than the cock pheasant, which plays the peacock in relation to its hen and is polygamous. The card, painted by that most faith- ftd of artists of birds, Mr. J. G. Harrison, can be procured from the Hon. Secretary, Sydney H. Long, M.D., 31 Surrey Street, Norwich. The price is 4d. each or 4s. .6d. a dozen inclusive of suitable envelopes and postage. All profits are of course devoted to the objects of the Trust, including the support of watchers.
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