GAME BIRDS AND LARGER NON-GAME BIRDS 153 
species. The king eider breeds on the Arctic and Labrador 
coasts. The Pacific eider breeds on the northern Pacific 
and Arctic coasts, being abundant around the mouth of the 
Mackenzie River (Plate XVI, 4). 
The great economic importance of the eider as the source 
of the valuable product, eider-down, a product of particular 
value in our northern latitudes, should need no emphasis. 
In the northern European countries of Norway and Iceland 
the birds are most zealously cared for by the inhabitants, 
who collect their down from the nests of the birds for com- 
mercial purposes. They realize fully the importance of 
conserving the birds, and encourage them by making nest- 
ing-places, so that they become semi-domesticated, and do 
not fear the intrusion of their protectors. During the early 
part of the nesting-season the down is taken, and also a 
proportion of the eggs, but sufficient eggs are left to enable 
the birds to rear the young required to keep up the num- 
bers of the birds. How widely different has been the 
treatment of the American eider on the coasts of Labrador, 
Newfoundland, and eastern Canada! Owing to the enor- 
mous destruction of the eggs, not to mention the adult 
birds, the eider is rapidly nearing the point of extermination 
on the Atlantic coast. Doctor Grenfell has described to 
me the ruthless destruction that takes place on the New- 
- foundland and Labrador coasts. For years this relentless 
destruction has been carried on. It is the modern version 
of the story of the killing of the goose that laid the golden 
eggs. In the eider the inhabitants of our coastal lands, all 
too destitute of commercial resources, have a resource of 
inestimable value if the birds were protected to the same 
extent that the eider is protected in northern Europe. A 
valuable eider-down industry could be developed which 
would alleviate materially the conditions of life that are 
endured by the inhabitants of those inhospitable northern 
shores. 
