LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 99 



is referred to Avliat has been written on this subject under the fore- 

 going subspecies.] 



Youn(j. — The period of incubation is 28 days, and the incubation 

 is performed only by the female. The young as soon as hatched are 

 led to the water by the female, who is also said to help them over 

 difficult places by carrying them in her bill. From the first they are 

 expert divers in shallow water, and are assiduously tended by the 

 mother who draws them from danger, or acts the part of the 

 wounded duck to distract attention v»'hile they hide among the rocks 

 or in the grass. The downy young are of grayish brown color, 

 lighter on the belly. There is a pale line along the side of the head 

 over and under the eye. 



Plumages. — In his full nuptial plumage the male eider is a 

 splendid sight, a very conspicuous object. It has been said by Thayer 

 that the drake's plumage is in reality concealing, as the white 

 matches the snow, the green and dark blue the ice and the water, and 

 the black the rocky cliffs. But to one who is familiar with the 

 bird, either among snow and ice, on the open sea, or under the 

 beetling crags, on rocks or among mosses and dwarf spruces of the 

 northern bogs, such an idea does not appeal, for the bird is always 

 conspicuous. The display he makes of his plumage in courtship, and 

 the fact that he retires after this season is over into the eclipse 

 plumage which is similar to that of the female, is good proof — if 

 proof were needed — that the courtship dress is for show only and 

 not for protection. The eclipse plumage worn by the males and 

 the nearly similar brown plumage of the females and young is in- 

 deed an inconspicuous one, and the birds wearing this are to a large 

 extent protectively colored. I have almost stepped on the nesting 

 female and did not see her until she ran from the nest; and at a 

 distance on the ocean, one may see a band of eiders of which only 

 the males are visible until a nearer approach, when one is surprised 

 to find an equal number of females. 



After the nesting season is over the males retire to the outer islands 

 and rocks, where they are for a time unable to fly owing to the ex- 

 tensive molt into the eclipse plumage. According to Audubon the 

 sterile females molt at the same time, but the females with broods do 

 not molt until fully two weeks later. 



AVith rare exceptions all the eiders in the region of the Mingan 

 Islands in southern Labrador we found to be in full adult plumage 

 in the last half of May and the first half of June. In the first half 

 of July, on the southern part of the eastern coast, many birds were 

 seen that were molting from the nuptial drake plumage into the 

 eclipse, while in the last part of July and early in August, in the 

 Mingan region, we found nearly all the eiders to be in the brown 

 plumage; only a very few showed traces of the brilliant nuptia) 



