ISO 



British Birds. 



STELLER'S 

 EIDER-DUCK. 



(Hemcunetta 

 stelleri.) 



King Eider-Duck. 

 Steller's Eider-Duck. 



This beau- 

 tiful Duck has 

 twice been 

 shot on the 

 east coast of 

 England ; once in Norfolk and 

 once in Yorkshire. It is a 

 maritime species, and breeds in 

 the arctic regions from the north 

 of Norway throughout Siberia 

 to the Aleutian Islands. The 

 male is a very handsome bird, 

 with a white head, and a green 

 patch on the lores and another 

 on the nape. The wing-speculum 

 is purple, and the chest and breast 

 are chestnut, fading into cinnamon 

 on the abdomen. The female is 



very different from the male, being blackish above and below, with the head and 

 neck rufous brown and the chest chestnut, mottled with black. The wing-speculum 

 is purple as in the male, and the fact that the hen possesses the same speculum as 

 the male is one of the points in which Steller's Duck differs from the other 

 Eiders. It is a shy bird and soon deserts its nest if the latter be meddled with. 

 The nest is a depression in the moss of the tundra, which is lined with down. The 

 eggs are from seven to nine in number, and are of a pale greenish stone-colour ; 

 they measure about two-and-a-quarter inches in length. 



The Eiders have a bare space between the lores and the 

 forehead, and, when adult, have sickle-shaped inner secondaries 

 on each side of the back. The Common Eider is white, with a 

 black head and belly, a beautiful tint of delicate pink on the 

 chest and a patch of green behind the ear-coverts. The female 

 is brown, mottled with black and rufous, and the young males are also at first brown 

 like the females, and take nearly four years to gain the adult plumage. After the 

 breeding-season the males moult their quills and don a dull dress like that of the 

 hens, and as they are then unable to fly, they betake themselves to the open sea and 

 associate in flocks. The species breeds along the shores of Scotland north from the 

 Fame Islands in Northumberland, but is only a winter visitor to Ireland and the 

 coasts of England. It nests in various places on the coasts of Norway, Denmark, 

 the Faeroes, Iceland, and the shores of Greenland and North-eastern America, being 

 protected in most places for the sake of the down, which is collected by the people 

 who farm, the breeding-places. It is a maritime species and is gregarious both in 



THE COMMON 

 EIDER-DUCK. 



{Sumateria 

 mollissima.) 



