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tively tame, even allowing itself to be disturbed in its nest, 

 and the valuable down removed, without forsaking the eggs, 

 and even though thus robbed year after year ; care being 

 taken by the inhabitants of the islands it resorts to that it is 

 defended against any other robbers ; it is one of those rare 

 cases in which man and bird may be said to have arrived at 

 a tacit modus vivendi. 



The Eider is a bird which man has seen no reason to 

 attempt to domesticate, and even if he had attempted, 

 failure would have resulted, it is a rover of the ocean and no 

 food that man could have provided for it would have suited 

 its constitution, but laws have protected it in the Scan- 

 danavian countries, especially during the nesting season, and 

 happily its flesh is little relished as food ; I lately heard that 

 the eiders had, on the Coast of Norway, been protected to the 

 extent of a close period extending over fifteen years. 



My object in speaking of the eider is to bring before you an 

 instance of a bird on the extreme verge of domestication, of a 

 perfectly wild nature during the greater part of the year, in 

 no way, in this respect, resembling the partially domesticated 

 pheasants of our preserves, which, by being reared artificially, 

 under common fowls in many instances, are domesticated 

 during the early period of their lives, although the chicks so 

 reared exhibit their wild nature, as compared with fowls, 

 from their earliest exclusion from the Qgg. 



I have chosen the eider duck as one of the duck tribe, 

 because, through the Swan, a connecting link is formed with 

 the perfectly domestic goose, duck, and musk duck ; the swan 

 in many cases is kept on large rivers and in swanneries, 

 almost in a semi-wild state, in other instances it is kept in 

 small pieces of water and is nearly as domestic as a goose, 

 still the swan is not a bird that resorts at night to shelter 

 provided by man, as the truly domestic birds of this group do 

 to a great extent. 



In the New Forest where foxes abound, it was always 

 very interesting to me to see the geese coming home at night, 

 and walking leisurely through a small opening into their 



