150 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



The difference in the treatment received by Eider Ducks 

 here and in Iceland is worthy of some notice. This bird, like 

 other Ducks, lines its nest with soft down from its own breast, 

 and before leaving the nest to feed covers the eggs with 

 a blanket of this down, which it seems to have matted to- 

 gether for the purpose. Other species have similar habits. 

 The covering sometimes is attached at one side to the nest 

 itself, and can be removed from the eggs and spread over 

 them again as a blanket is thrown off or spread over a bed. 

 This gray down protects the eggs from the cold and hides 

 them from their enemies. It (with the down of other Ducks) 

 forms the eider down of commerce, and the natives of Iceland 

 get a considerable revenue by collecting it. They make holes 

 in the sod near their houses and even prepare holes in their 

 sod roofs to induce the Ducks to breed there. The birds are 

 absolutely protected and are as tame as domestic fowls. 

 When the first downy lining is removed from the nest the 

 female plucks her breast again to renew it, and if the second 

 lining is taken it is said that the male then contributes the 

 down from his own breast. The people never disturb the 

 nest after this, and the birds are always allowed to raise a 

 brood. 



The treatment they receive on the Atlantic coast of the 

 United States and the Canadian provinces is in sharp contrast 

 to this. They have escaped extinction only because many of 

 them breed in the far north, where white men rarely go, and 

 because these northern birds are so hardy that they seek a 

 temperate climate only in the depth of winter, when cold and 

 storms make their pursuit a hardship. While here they usually 

 keep well out to sea. Their food consists largely of mussels, 

 which they can secure in ten fathoms or more of water, and 

 they are so hardy, and so much at home in a storm at sea, that 

 they are rarely seen in Massachusetts, except on salt water. 

 They are rather rarely taken on some of the larger inland lakes 

 of New York. They fully merit the name Sea Duck which is 

 given them by the gunners. 



