42 Allen's naturalist's lidrary. 



rufous, like the sides of the face ; fore-neck, chest, and sides of 

 body more chestnut, with concentric black bars ; centre of 

 breast and abdomen sooty-blackish, the under tail-coverts 

 more rufous ; under wing-coverts dusky, with a patch of white 

 in the centre ; bill greenish-brown ; feet dull ochre ; iris dull 

 yellow. Total length, 21 inches; wing, io"5. 



Characters. — The King Eider can always be distinguished by 

 the way in which the anterior point of the feathering on the 

 forehead reaches as far as the hinder end of the nostrils ; the 

 throat has a V-shaped mark. In the males the base of the 

 upper mandible is enlarged on each side so as to form a broad 

 naked lobe. The female is much more rufous than that of 

 the Common Eider, and can be distinguished by the characters 

 of the feathering on the bill. 



Range in Great Britain. — The King Eider can only be con- 

 sidered a rare visitor to our coasts, and has principally been 

 noticed off the Fame Islands, doubtless lured to stay there by 

 the presence of the Common Eider Ducks, which are resident 

 on the group. Several have been observed off the coast of 

 Scotland, particularly in the Orkneys and Shetland Isles, and 

 in England a few individuals have been procured, chiefly on 

 the east coast. I have seen one specimen from Ireland, an 

 immature bird having been submitted to me by Mr. Sheridan, 

 who shot it near Achill Island, and two other Irish specimens 

 have been recorded. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The King Eider is a strictly 

 arctic bird, breeding in Kolguev, Novaya Zemlya, and in the 

 northern lands of Siberia to JBering Sea. It is not yet known to 

 breed in Iceland or the Faeroes, or in Spitsbergen or Scandinavia, 

 though it occasionally occurs in winter in these localities, and 

 has also been found at intervals on the coasts of the North Sea 

 and the Baltic. In North America it is known as a breeding 

 bird, not only in Greenland, but nearly as far north as man has 

 yet penetrated, and as far south as the Province of Quebec in 

 Canada, coming further in winter to the Great Lakes and New 

 Jersey, and being found occasionally as far south as Cali- 

 fornia. 



Habits. — ^Colonel Feilden, in his notes on the birds of the 

 North Polar basin, says that King Eiders were first noticed on 



