147 



Boheman on July 22. Then most of the drakes seemed to have 

 gone to the open sea, where they probably moulted. Neither did I 

 see many females in the latter half of July, due to the fact that 

 they are close breeders. 



In the end of July, "when the young were out, I saw adult females 

 with young everywhere in the tundra on freshicater -lakes. I here lay 

 stress on freshivater -lakes, for in the Fjord I never saw female King- 

 Eiders with young. The number of adult and young birds I could 

 not fix, for on my walks thi'ough the tundra I always saw many 

 females with young. Then it also became apparent, why I and other 

 previous investigators had seen comparatively little of the breeding 

 of the King-Eider: the ducks nest at a considerable distance from 

 each other, distributed throughout the tundra, which is + 15 KM. 

 long. So the nests are found by chance only. Kolthoff records a 

 nest on one of the Eiderholms near Cape Boheman. But for the 

 drake, mating with a female Common Eider, I never met with 

 King-Eiders on the islands near our settlement. In 1907 Koenig's 

 expedition found King-Eider nests in Advent bay on a similar ground 

 as in Tundra Boheman (le Roi (1911) p. 246). On Aug. I I saw a 

 real „nursery" of the King-Eider in a comparatively large lake close 

 to Wahlenberg Glacier. Here I counted at least thirty adult and 

 more than a hundred young King-Eiders. These numbers can give 

 an idea of the quantity of the King-Eider in Tundra Boheman. 



These and all other young King-Eiders met with at the same time 

 were all of a size. From this it follows that all King-Eiders begin 

 to breed simultaneously in the tundra, viz. when the snow is melted 

 enough. 



Especially the young King-Eiders suffer much from the Arctic 

 Skua (both species are real tundra-birds !) The young are swahowed 

 at once by the Skua's, as I could see on dissecting a killed Skua. 



The alarm note of the duck sounds like cock-cock-croo-croo. Not 

 only when feeding, but also when in danger old and young ones 

 dive very well. Several times I saw that after having dived in 

 order to escape me, they hid very well in the plants near the edge 

 of the water, where they remained quite motionless for a long time. 

 When they try to escape by swimming, the female swims very 

 deeply sunk in the water, so that only her head sticks out above 

 the surface. 



The old birds defended their young with great energy and often 

 with success against our dogs. 



