104 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
their destination the flocks disband and the birds quietly pair, 
but the first eggs are rarely laid earlier than the first of June. 
Most of my eggs were taken fresh between the toth and 2oth of 
this month, and I obtained the young just out of the egg on July 
23rd. When first paired the birds choose a pond in a marsh, 
and are henceforth found in its vicinity until the young are 
hatched. When the grass commences to show green and the snow 
andice are nearly gone, these ducks choose some dry, grassy 
spot close to a pond, and making a slight hollow with a warm 
lining of grass, they commence the duties of the season, al- 
though the other denizens of the marsh are already well on with 
their house-keeping. One nest found on June 15th was on abed 
of dry grass on the border of the pond, within a foot of the 
water, and when the female flew off, the single egg could be seen 
20 yards away. Tussocks of dry grass, small islands in ponds, 
and knolls close to the water’s edge are all chosen as nesting 
places, and as a rule the nest is well concealed by the dry grass 
standing about. The eggs usually number from five to eight or 
nine in a set and are small for the size of the bird. In colour 
they are of a light olive-drab. (/Ve/son. 
LXI. SOMATERIA Leacu. 1819. 
159. Greenland Bider. Northern Eider. 
Somateria mollissima borealis C. L. BREHM. 1830. 
Common along all the coasts of Greenland ; northern limit 
unknown. (Arct. Man.) A resident at Ivigtut and very abundant. 
(Hagerup.) Abundant in Hudson Strait ; breeds in Ungava Bay. 
(Packard.) 
160. American Eider. 
Somateria dresseri SHARPE. 1871. 
The most abundant species of duck in Newfoundland, but 
rapidly growing scarce owing to the destruction of eggs. (Reeks.) 
Common. Breeds on Isle Haut, Bay of Fundy. Downs.) 
Common inwinter on the south coast of Labrador, in the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, and up the St. Lawrence to Quebec. (Déonme.) 
Eider Ducks in immature plumage, which I take to be this species, 
have been occasionally shot at Montreal in the fall. (Win#le.) 
Common in Hudson Strait, and seen at York Factory and Churchill 
