204 ANATID.E, 



added ; this increases from day to day, and at last becomes 

 so considerable in quantity, as to envelope and entirely con- 

 ceal the eggs from view, no doubt contributing by its effect, 

 as a nonconductor of heat, to the perfect evolution of the 

 foetus. The young, as soon as hatched, are conducted to 

 the water, and this, in some instances, must be effected by 

 the parent carrying them in her bill, as I have frequently 

 seen the nest placed in such situations as to preclude the 

 possibility of its being done in any other way. Incubation 

 lasts a month. The food of the Eider consists of the young 

 of the different muscles that cover the rocks, and other spe- 

 cies of bivalves. The young are reared with difficulty in 

 confinement, and being very bad walkers, are subject to fre- 

 quent accidents in the poultry-yard. Like all the Anatid^, 

 possessing a lobated hind toe, they dive with facility, and 

 remain submerged for a long time." 



The Eider Duck is also called St. Cuthbert's Duck, from 

 the circumstance of its breeding there on a rock, called St. 

 Cuthbert's Isle, as well as upon other islands which form the 

 group. " So early as A.D. 635, says the author of Rambles 

 in Northumberland and on the Scottish Border, a monastery 

 was established at Lindisfarn, one of these islands, by Aidan, 

 a Scottish monk, educated in the island of lona, or Icolmkil, 

 who exercised the office of bishop in Northumberland. From 

 this period a succession of bishoi^s continued to preside at 

 Lindisfarn till about SOS, when, in consequence of the mo- 

 nastery having been several times plundered by the Danes, 

 the bishop and his brethren abandoned the island, taking 

 with them the body of St. Cuthbert, which had been interred 

 in the church, as one of their most precious relics. After 

 the saints body had been in a state of almost perpetual 

 transit for nearly two centuries, he at length made choice of 

 Durham, as a final resting-place, and thither the See of 

 Lindisfarn was transferred, with the remains of St. Cuthbert, 



