AMERICAN EIDER. 



COMMON EIDER, SEA DUCK. 

 SOMATERIA DRESSERI. 



Char. Back, cheeks, and wing-coverts white ; top of head, wings, tail, 

 and belly black; patch of sea-green on sides of neck; breast rosy buff; 

 bill of greenish color, and with long wedges of feathers extending from 

 the forehead and cheeks towards the nostrils ; legs dull green. The female 

 is nearly uniform dull brown, mottled with paler on the breast ; belly dull 

 white. Length about 25 inches. 



Nest. Generally on a flat and grassy ocean island, often on a bluff on 

 the coast, — sometimes on a heath-covered moorland; a substantial 

 structure of coarse marine herbage thickly lined with down. 



Eggs. 4-10 ; color varies from creamy gray to grayish green ; 2.95 X 

 2.00. 



The Eider Duck, remarkable for the softness of its valuable 

 down, seerns thus purposely provided by Nature with a clothing 

 suited to the inclement regions in which it generally dwells. 

 Living mostly out at sea, it is thus enabled to endure the sever- 



