to persecution and egg-robbing ')• Tliese birds like to nest on flat 

 islands off the coast, where they are safe from the Arctic fox. For 

 the same reason the Brent Geese also breed on islands, and the 

 Pink-footed and Barnacle Geese on high cliffs or high up in the 

 mountains. 



The Eider also breeds on the mainland; not so often, however. 

 Trevor Battye" found it only once here (1897, p. 585). On Cape 

 Boheman it breeds numerously; the Twins and Three Isles are 

 much frequented holms. For the rest I saw many nests scattered 

 along the coast (figs. 1 and 3, plate I) and some in the dry and 

 wet parts of Fundra Boheman. Along the coast they like to breed 

 between or at the foot of rocks; in the dry tundra they generally 

 nest between Gassiope. 



In the end of June the drakes were still courting, calling softly 

 and melodiously. For our kitchen we shot many drakes near the 

 nest, which could be done without harm, because the remaining 

 female had a new „husband" soon after. 



This small Eiderduck-species — Danish breeding birds are largest ; 

 farther North they get smaller (le Roi (1911), p. 237) — is not so 

 numerous in Icefjord as in the West and North of the Spitsbergen 

 Archipelago, owing to the fact that in Icefjord there are compa- 

 ratively few islands. Besides near Cape Boheman I saw them breed- 

 ing plentifully on Vertical Rock (near Wahlenberg Glacier), on the 

 Anser Isles (0. E.) and distributed along the coast. 



On the Anser Isles they had (July 17) highly incubated eggs, 

 there being also many nestlings. I observed here that a female 

 conducted the newly-hatched young to the sea one after the other. 



On the Eiderholms the ducks are very tame, also w^hen their 

 eggs are repeatedly collected and even the drakes did not fly away, 

 when we came not too near. 



The female makes little noise, grunting only, when she is distur- 

 bed. The nest is a cup-shaped hollow, in which some plants are 

 found amidst the beautiful and precious down; the numbe»ofeggs 

 varies highly; it is 4 or 5 on holms, where the eggs are regularly 

 collected ; later in the season there are even less. Complete clutches 

 consist of 6 or 7 eggs. In Liefde Bay (Lerner Islands, where the 

 birds had not been disturbed) very large clutches were found by 



1) Jourdain wrote me that the Oxf. Exp. had met a ship with 15.000 (!) 

 eggs on board, collected at the Edinburgh Isles (Prince Charles Foreland). 



