EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 53 



Lakes, and the Atlantic coast as far south as Jamaica. It is a 

 rare visitor to Greenland ; and though it has not yet been obtained 

 in Iceland, it has occurred accidentally on the Bermudas, the 

 Faroes, on the coasts of Scandinavia, Heligoland, Germany, 

 France, and in Switzerland. 



Audubon, who found the Surf-Scoter breeding in Labrador, 

 gives some particulars of its nesting habits. He discovered a nest 

 in a large freshwater marsh, built in a tuft of grass, and about 

 four inches above the surrounding ground. It was made of 

 dead and decaying weeds, the inner cavity, which was about 

 six inches in diameter, being surrounded with down plucked 

 from the female. 



The eggs of the Surf-Scoter are from five to eight in number. 

 They are pale greyish-buff when newly laid, with a slight pinkish 

 tinge, smooth in texture, and with little gloss. The eggs obtained 

 by MacFarlane vary in length from 2'3 to 225 inches, and in 

 breadth from 175 to 1*6 inch ; they are smaller in size than those 

 of the Black Scoter and the Velvet Scoter, but otherwise closely 

 resemble them. The down of the Surf-Scoter does not appear to 

 have been exactly described. 



STELLEK'S EIDEB DUCK. 



(Somateria stelleri.)* 



Plate 9, Fig. 2. 



Steller's Eider (the Western Duck of Pennant) has very slender 

 claims to be regarded as a British bird ; but a stray individual 

 occasionally wanders westward from Russian Lapland as far as 

 our shores, and two such occurrences are on record, one in 1830 

 and the second in 1845. This bird has a limited range, being 

 only known to breed on the shores of the Arctic Ocean in North 

 Russia and Siberia, and on the islands in Bering Sea. 



The nests found by Middendorff were very deep in moss, and 

 contained from seven to nine fresh eggs and abundance of down. 

 The eggs obtained by the same traveller are pale bumsh-green, 

 and vary in length from 25 to 2"2 inches, and in breadth from 1*6 

 15 inch. Small eggs of Steller's Eider are indistinguishable 

 from large eggs of the Pintail. 



* Heniconetta stelleri — Sharpe, Handb., III., p. 34. 



