287 101 



contain eggs as late as July, but that is because they have been 

 robbed of the first sets. The young do not remain upwards 

 of a day in the nest; they are no sooner dry than the female 

 conducts them to the water. The distance, however, is sometimes 

 considerable, and they are often snapped up by some of the larger 

 gulls, Lestrides, and other species partaking more or less of the 

 nature of birds of prey. On the water, they will often escape by 

 diving; but large numbers of newly hatched young are annually 

 destroyed by their rapacious enemies, and the ravenous crows 

 and ravens devour thousands of eggs. 



The young are first-rate divers in the earliest stage of their 

 existence, and may be often seen ducking and diving amid 

 the boiling surf. The first few days the young subsist on Litorince 

 (in particular L. ohtusata and yroenlandica), which are swallowed 

 whole, subsequently on the young of Mytilus edulis; small stones 

 of the size of the a bean are also found in their stomachs. The 

 young do not invariably follow their true mother, but will often 

 attach themselves to some other female they may chance to meet 

 with. At Kistrand, I saw for several days in succession a female 

 with a string of five and twenty ducklings, scarcely a week old, 

 following in her wake. 



Young in down, just hatched, and still in the nest, measure 

 as follows: — Total length from 170 to 175 mm, culmen 16 V2, 

 tarsus 24V2— 26, middle toe 28 + 5 mm. The down is browny 

 black, a trifle lighter on the belly. 



When the number of eggs in one nest exceeds 6 — and as 

 many as 8 are not infrequently found, in one instance 14 were 

 taken — all have not been laid by the same female. 



So soon as the young birds are hatched, or about the middle 

 of June, the adult males, it is said, quit the inner „SkJ0ergaard" 

 and clear off to sea, passing the remainder of the summer, in 

 large flocks, on the outermost holms and islets. 



This statement, which is found in almost every account of the 

 habits of the Eider Duck, is perhaps not strictly correct. Through- 

 out the breeding-season the males are arrayed in their magnificent 



