THE FEATHERED GAME OF NORWAY. TTS 
wooden wands. The dust and dirt thus fall through 
on to a board which is placed underneath, and the 
process is repeated until no more is found to come 
away. 
The down is now ready for use, and is stored up in 
bags for exportation or sale. The whole process is 
very tedious; and is the more felt to be so, as im the 
short northern summer there are so many other neces- 
sary things to be attended to. 
The unclean down will not yield quite one-sixth 
clean, the value of which will be about twelve shillings 
on the spot. Owing, however, to the alarming diminu- 
tion in the numbers of the birds, no dependence can be 
placed on obtaining any considerable quantity. 
Formerly, a large quantity of eider-down used to be 
imported from Spitzbergen and Russia, but mostly of 
an inferior quality. To an inexperienced eye, it may be 
difficult to distinguish between the live and dead down ; 
but there are one or two characteristic marks which 
infallibly test the quality of the article: not only is 
the live down much the lighter and more elastic of the 
two, but if a handful of it be thrown up into the air, 
even when a tolerably fresh breeze is blowing, it will 
adhere together in a compact mass, and not a particle 
of it be lost, whilst the other will be scattered in all 
directions, like so much thistle-seed; or if it be placed 
before a fire, it will be seen to rise and expand in bulk 
