CHAPTER XXV 
UNORTHODOX ATTITUDES 
HEN I saw eider-ducks eating seaweed. off the 
coast of my island I was aware that they were 
doing something which they had no business to be 
doing ; for it is stated in works of authority that 
they are purely animal feeders. I have had mis- 
givings, therefore, ever since making the observation, 
but now, having seen a black guillemot also eating a 
piece of this same brown seaweed, I feel more com- 
fortable about it, for surely this bird should be as 
exclusively a fish-eater as the eider-duck is supposed 
to be a devourer of shell-fish, crustaceans, etc. It 
was certainly, I think, a piece of this seaweed—short, 
brown, bunchy, and covered with little lobes—that 
this particular bird had in its bill. Through the 
glasses I could see it distinctly, and most distinctly it 
swallowed it. I doubt myself if there is any bird 
that feeds exclusively on anything, or that is abso- 
lutely confined to an animal or vegetable diet. They 
seem ever ready to enlarge their experience according 
to their opportunities of doing so, thus illustrating 
one of Darwin’s most pregnant remarks. 
When this “tysty” dived it presented a beautiful 
appearance under the water, owing to the snow-white 
patches on its wing-coverts, which flashed out dis- 
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