372 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



ran down at top speed upon a pair, duck and drake. At 

 80 yards, both turned deliberately down-wind and I saw 

 they ought to be mine ; since before they could again head 

 the wind to rise, we had slipped within fair shot, and both 

 were gathered, dead. The next was a single drake, which 

 seemed fairly struck, full broadside, yet we never saw 

 him more. He disappeared as he fell, and though the 

 boat was instantly brought into the wind and we cruised 

 around the spot with six pairs of eyes on keenest look-out, 

 no sign of the bird was ever seen. The depth was four 

 fathoms, rocky bottom with long sea-tangle. 



In a deep bay, sheltered from the swell, we secured the 

 second pair required. There were sixty to eighty eiders 

 inside, and as our boat dashed in full-speed, they kept 

 coming out to pass us : and a well-timed luff brought a 

 dozen within forty yards when right v abeam. Eiders have 

 been credited with exceptional speed of wing : erroneously 

 in my opinion. In this case, where the ducks were coming 

 out down-wind, meeting our craft spinning past in an 

 opposite direction, the pace, as between the two, was very 

 great. But both eiders fell dead, which was not the case 

 with a red-throated diver a few seconds later. I was 

 anxious for special reasons to get this bird : but felt as I 

 touched trigger, that the pace was too fast for me — it 

 appeared half as great again as that of the eiders. 



Among the few eiders we have killed, one specimen, an 

 adult drake shot in Skate Roads, Holy Island, on January 

 1 8th, 1S78, showed under the chin a dusky chevron of 

 blackish feathers. This, it appears, is one of the dis- 

 tinguishing marks of another species, found as far away 

 as Bering Sea — to wit, Somateria V-nigrum, and this 

 curious specimen is now in the National collection at 

 South Kensington. 



