EIDER DUCK. 39 
Both the male and female Eider Ducks work in concert 
in building their nest, laying a rather coarse foundation of 
drift grass, dry tangle, and sea-weed, which is collected in 
‘some quantity. Upon this rough mattress the female spreads 
a bed of the finest dewn, plucked from her own breast, and 
by no means sparingly; but, as Brunnich informs us, heaping 
it up, so as to form a thick roll quite round the nest. 
When she is necessitated to go im quest of food after 
beginning to sit, she carefully turns this roll of down over 
the eggs to keep them warm till her return. Marten says 
she mixes the down with moss; but as this is not recorded 
by another observer, I think it is not a little doubtful, 
particularly as in the localities chosen ‘for nestling she would 
find it no easy matter to procure moss. It is worthy of 
remark, that though the Eider Duck lays only five or six 
eggs, it is not uncommon to find more than even ten and 
upwards in the same nest, occupied by two females, who live 
together in perfect concord. 
The quantity of down in each nest is said by Von Troil 
to be about half a pound, which by cleaning is reduced to 
a half; by Pennant, who examined the Eiders’ nests in the 
Fern Islands, off Northumberland, it 1s only estimated, when 
eleaned, at three quarters of an ounce, and this was so 
elastic as to fill the crown of the largest hat. The difference 
of quality in these two accounts, theoretically ascribed by 
the translator of Buffon to difference of climate, may have 
arisen from the one being the first, and the other the second 
or third nest of the mother Duck; for if the first nest be 
plundered of the down, though she immediately builds a 
second, she cannot furnish it with the same quantity as 
before; and if foreed to build a third time, having then 
stript her breast of all she could spare, the male is said to 
furnish what is wanting, which is known as being considerably 
whiter than the female’s. When the nest is not robbed, it 
is said that he furnishes none. 
The extraordinary elasticity of the down appears from what 
IT have already said of three quarters of sn ounce filling a 
large hat; and Pontoppidan says that two or three pounds 
of it, though pressed into a bail which may be held in the 
hand, upon being allowed to expand will fill the foot covering 
of a large bed. It 1s worthy of notice, however, that it is 
only the down taken from the nests which has this great 
elasticity; for what is taken from the dead birds is much 
