74 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



February 10, 1830 and Yorkshire, August 15, 1845), France, Ger- 

 many and Japan (Yezzo, March 9, 1894 and May 3, 1894). 



Egg dates. — Alaska : Eleven records, June 17 to July 10 ; six 

 records, June 22 to July 6. 



ARCTONETTA FISCHERI (Brandt) 

 SPECTACLED EIDER 



HABITS 



If the preceding life history was unsatisfactor}% this will be more 

 so, for still less is known about the habits of the oddly marked spec- 

 tacled or Fischer eider, which occupies such a restricted breeding 

 range in northwestern Alaska and northeastern Siberia. Few 

 naturalists have ever seen it in life. Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887), to 

 whom we are indebted for most of our laiowledge of the habits of 

 this species, says on this point : 



Its restricted range has, up to the present time, rendered this bird among 

 the least known of our waterfowl. Even in the districts where it occurs it is 

 so extremely local that a few miles may lead one to places they never visit. 



In Mr. Ball's paper upon the birds of Alaska he limits the breeding ground 

 of the spectacled eider to the marshes between the island of St. Michael and the 

 mainland. This, with the statement made to him by natives that they are 

 never found north of St. Michael, is not borne out by my observations, for 

 these eiders breed from the head of Norton Bay south to the month of the 

 Kuskoquim, at least. St. Michael may be noted as the center of abundance. 

 The spectacled eider is so restricted in its range and so local in its distribution, 

 even where it occurs, that, like the Labrador duck and the great auk. it may 

 readily be so reduced in numbers as to become a comparatively rare bird. 

 A species limited in the breeding season to the salt marshes between the head 

 of Norton Bay and the mouth of the Kuskoquim River occupies but a very 

 small territory, and a glance at the map will show this coast line not to exceed 

 400 miles, even following its indentations. The width of the breeding ground 

 will not exceed 1 or 2 miles, and there are long stretches where it does not 

 breed at all. 



In addition to the natural struggle for existence the species has to contend 

 against thousands of shotguns in the hands of the natives. The diminution in 

 all the species of waterfowl breeding along the coast is more and more marked 

 each season ; and while this may mean a desertion of one region for another 

 in the case of the great majority of geese and ducks, yet for such narrowly 

 limited species as the spectacled eider, and to a less extent the Emperor goose, 

 this diminution is but the beginning ef extermination. Moreover, the present 

 scarcity of large game along the coast is having great effect in causing the 

 natives to wage a continually increasing warfare upon the feathered game. 



Apparently Doctor Nelson's fears have been realized, as the spec- 

 tacled eider has nearly disappeared from the vicinity of St. Michael 

 and from the Yukon delta. My assistant, Mr. Hersey, spent the 

 season of 1914 at the mouth of the Yukon and the summer of 1915 

 in the vicinity of St. Michael with this species as one of the things 



