CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. . Ill 



place. A nest was found with eleven eggs on the hillside about 

 half a mile back of "the redoubt." The nest which was made in a 

 mossy situation, consisted of a few blades of grass and was well lined 

 with sooty-coloured down from the abdomen of the bird itself. 

 Along the Aleutian islands this bird prefers the steep slopes heavily 

 clothed with rank grasses, such as wild rye (Elymtis), which grows 

 in huge tussocks, among which the nest is hidden. A slight depres- 

 sion is scratched out; the eggs are placed on the bare ground, the 

 down being used as a cover for the eggs when the parent is absent 

 from the nest; it is plucked from the breast for that purpose only, 

 and increases in amount as the increased complement of eggs demands 

 a greater amount of covering. The eggs are never placed on the 

 down. The nest, when first scratched, is usually left to dry out 

 several days before it is used, as the bare spots were seen sometimes 

 a week before an egg was deposited. With the first egg, only a 

 little down is found in the nest, and it will be replaced two or three 

 times if removed. When the nest is full of eggs, and they, with all 

 the down, are removed, the bird seeks some other locality for again 

 laying fewer eggs, generally not more than five for the second nest. 

 (Turner.) Several sets of 5 to 8 eggs were collected for me by Rev. 

 C. E. Whittaker on the mainland opposite Herschell island. The 

 nests of down were built among rank grass growing along the sea 

 coast. (Raine.) Bishop saw no specimens of living eiders at St. 

 Michael or elsewhere in Alaska in 1899, so this bird may be becom- 

 ing rarer in that region. 



This bird breeds in immense numbers on the coast and islands of 

 Liverpool bay. The nest is usually a shallow cavity in the ground, 

 more or less plentifully lined with down. The eggs are generally 

 five, and but rarely six or seven, in number, of a pale sea-green 

 colour with a tinge of olive. We found some nests on a sloping 

 bank at a distance of three or four hundred feet from the sea. Others 

 were found on the mainland, but the bulk of those secured by us 

 were obtained from sandy islets in the bays. (Macfarlane.) 



162. King Eider. 



Somaieria spectahilis. (Linn.) Leach. 1819. 



Said not to breed further south than lat. 67°, but in some numbers 

 at lat. 73°; also on the east coast of Greenland and on the western 

 shores of Davis strait; breeds abundantly on the Parry islands. 



