Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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S H E-
ministry. After the accession of Lord John Russell to
power in 1846 he was appointed master of the mint.
Being desirous, on account of his wife’s health, to obtain
diplomatic employment abroad, he was in 1850 appointed
minister at the court of Tuscany. He died somewhat
suddenly of gout at Florence on May 23, 1851.
See Memoirs of Richard Lalor Sheil, by W. Torrens M'Cullagb
(2 vols., 1855).
SHEKEL. In the system of Babylonian and Assyrian
weights the talent (called in Heb. "i|?, kikkar) consisted of
60 mana (Heb. n^D} maneh) or minas, and the latter again
of sixty shekels (Heb.S^). For the values of these
weights see Numismatics, vol. xvii. p. 631, where it is
also explained that the Phoenicians and Hebrews modified
the system and reckoned only 50 shekels to the maneh, at
all events in applying the names to money, i.e., to the
precious metals,1 and that the weight of their silver shekel
was also probably modified for convenience of interchange
between the gold and silver standard. The silver shekels
of the Maccabees (Numismatics, p. 650) have a maximum
weight of about 224 grains, and correspond to the Phoe¬
nician tetradrachm (four drams). Hence in Matt. xvii. 24
the temple tax of half a shekel is called the didrachm (2
drams). In 2 Sam. xiv. 26 we read of shekels “ after the
king’s weight,” i.e., according to the Assyrian standard,
which is called “royal” on weights found at Nineveh.
The Hebrews divided the shekel into twenty parts, each of
which was a gerah (HUJ).
SHELBURNE, Earl of. See Lansdowne, Marquis
of.
SHELD-DRAKE, or, as commonly spelt in its con¬
tracted form, Sheldrake, a word whose derivation2 3 * has
been much discussed, one of the most conspicuous birds of
the Duck tribe, Anatidse, called, however, in many parts of
England the “ Burrow-Duck ” from its habits presently
to be mentioned, and in some districts by the almost obso¬
lete name of “ Bergander” (Dutch, Berg-eende, Germ. Berg-
ente), a word used by Turner in 1544.
The Sheldrake is the Anas tadorna3 of Linnseus, and the
Tadorna cornuta or T. vulpanser of modern ornithology, a bird
somewhat larger and of more upright stature than an ordinary
Duck, having its bill, with a basal fleshy protuberance (whence the
specific term cornuta), pale red, the head and upper neck very dark
glossy green, and beneath that a broad white collar, succeeded by
a still broader belt of bright bay extending from the upper back
across the upper breast. The outer scapulars, the primaries, a
median abdominal stripe, which dilates at the vent, and a bar at
the tip of the middle tail-quills are black ; the inner secondaries
and the lower tail-coverts are grey ; and the speculum or wing-spot
is a rich bronzed-green. The rest of the plumage is pure white,
and the legs are flesh-coloured. There is little external difference
between the sexes, the female being only somewhat smaller and
less brightly coloured. The Sheldrake frequents the sandy coasts
of nearly the whole of Europe and North Africa, extending across
Asia to India, China, and Japan, generally keeping in pairs and
sometimes penetrating to favourable inland localities. The nest
is always made under cover, usually in a rabbit-hole among sand¬
hills, and in the Frisian Islands the people supply this bird with
artificial burrows, taking large toll of it in eggs and down. Barbary,
south-eastern Europe, and Central Asia are inhabited by an allied
1 See Exod. xxxviii. 25, where there are 3000 shekels in the talent.
2 Bay in 1674 {Engl. Words, p. 76) gave it from the local “sheld”
(= particoloured), which, applied to animals, as a horse or a cat, still
survives in East Anglia. This opinion is not only suitable but is
confirmed by the bird’s Old Norsk name Skjbldungr, from Skjbldr,
primarily a patch, and now commonly bestowed on a piebald horse,
just as Skjalda (Cleasby’s Icel. Diet., sub voce), from the same source,
is a particoloured cow. But some scholars interpret Skjbldungr by
the secondary meaning of Skjbldr, a shield, asserting that it refers
to “the shield-like band across the breast ” of the bird. If they be
right the proper spelling of the English word would be “ Shield-drake,”
as some indeed have it. A third suggested meaning, from the Old Norsk
Skj6l, shelter, is philologically to be rejected, but, if true, would refer
to the bird’s habit, described in the text, of breeding under cover.
3 This is the Latinized form of the French Tadorne, first published
by Belon (1555), a word on which Littre throws no light except to
state that it has a southern variant Tar done.
-SHE
species of more inland range and very different coloration, the
T. casarca or Casarca* rutila of ornithologists, the Ruddy
Sheldrake of English authors—for it has several times strayed to
the British Islands,—and the “ Brahminy Duck” of Anglo-
Indians, who find it resorting in winter, whether by pairs or by
thousands, to their inland waters. This species is of an almost
uniform bay colour all over, except the quill-feathers of the wings
and tail, and (in the male) a ring round the neck, which are black,
while the wing-coverts are white and the speculum shines with
green and purple ; the bill and legs are dark-coloured.5 A species
closely resembling the last, but with a grey head, T. cana, inhabits
South Africa, while in some of the islands of the Malay Archi¬
pelago, and in the northern parts of Australia, there is a fourth
species, T. radjah, which almost equals the true Sheldrake in its
brightly contrasted plumage, but yet wants some of the lively
colours the latter displays—its head, for instance, being white
instead of dark green. Further to the southward in Australia
occurs another species of more sombre colours, the T. tadornoidcs;
and New Zealand is the home of a sixth species, T. variegata,
still less distinguished by bright hues. In the last two the
plumage of the sexes differs not inconsiderably, but all are believed
to have essentially the same habits as the T. cornuta.®
It is not without a purpose that these different species
are here particularized. Sheldrakes will, if attention be paid
to their wants, breed freely in captivity, crossing if oppor¬
tunity be given them with other species, and an incident
therewith connected possesses an importance hardly to be
overrated by the philosophical naturalist, though it seems
not to have met with the attention it deserves. In the
Zoological Society’s gardens in the spring of 1859 a male of
T. cornuta mated with a female of T. cana, and, as will have
been inferred from what has been before stated, these two
species differ greatly in the colouring of their plumage.
The young of their union, however, presented an appear¬
ance wholly unlike that of either parent, and an appearance
which can hardly be said, as has been said {P. Z. S., 1859,
p. 442), to be “a curious combination of the colours of the
two.” Both sexes of this hybrid have been admirably por¬
trayed by Mr Wolf (tom. cit., Aves, pi. 158); and, strange
to say, when these figures are compared with equally faith¬
ful portraits by the same master (op. cit., 1864, pis. 18, 19)
of the Australian and New Zealand species, T. tadornoides
and T. variegata, it will at once be seen that the hybrids
present an appearance almost midway between the two
species last named—species which certainly had nothing
to do with their production. The only explanation of this
astounding fact seems to be that afforded by the principle
of “ reversion,” as set forth by Mr Darwin, and illustrated
by him from examples of certain breeds of Doves, domes¬
tic Fowls, and Ducks (Anim. and PI. under Domestication,
i. pp. 197-200, ii. p. 40), as well as, in the matter of
domestic Fowls, by Mr Cambridge Phillips (Zoologist,
1884, p. 331). It is a perfectly fair hypothesis that the
existing animals of New Zealand and Australia retain
more of their ancestral character than do those of countries
in which we may suppose the struggle for life to have
been fiercer and the action of natural selection stronger.
Why it is so we cannot say, yet experiment proves that
the most widely different breeds of Pigeons and other
poultry, when crossed, produce offspring that more re¬
sembles the ancestral wild species from which the domestic¬
ated forms have sprung than it resembles either of the
immediate parents. This mysterious agency is known as
4 Bonaparte was pleased in 1838 to separate this species from the
genus Tadorna, but neither he nor any of his successors has shewn
any good reason for doing so.
5 Jerdon [B. India, iii. p. 793) tells of a Hindu belief that once
upon a time two lovers were transformed into birds of this species,
and that they or their descendants are condemned to pass the night
on the opposite banks of a river, whence they unceasingly call to one
another: “Charkwa, shall I come?” “No, Charkwi. ” “ Charkwi,
shall I come?” “No, Charkwa.” As to how, under these circum¬
stances, the race is perpetuated the legend is silent.
6 The Anas scutellata of the Indo-Malay countries is by several
authorities considered to be a Tadorna, but this view is denied by
others, among them by Mr Hume {Stray Feathers, viii. p. 158).