106 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
shores of Franklin Bay; it is also very abundant on the coast 
and islands of Liverpool Bay. (MJacfarlane.) This species is 
quite common at Point Barrow during the migrations, but does 
not breed there, going farther to the eastward. (Murdoch.) 
BREEDING Notres.—At St. Michael this species breeds in con- 
siderable numbers, and there prefers the open tundra for a nesting 
place. A nest was found with eleven eggs on the hillside about 
half a mile back of ‘the redoubt.” The nest which was made in 
a mossy situation, consisted of a few blades of grass and was well 
lined with sooty-coloured down from the abdomen of the bird 
itself. Along the Aleutian Islands this bird prefers the steep slopes 
heavily clothed with rank grasses, such as wild rye (Elymus), 
which grows in huge tussocks, among which the nest is hidden. 
A slight depression is scratched out ; the eggs are placed on the 
bare ground, the down being used as a cover for the eggs 
when the parent is absent from the nest, it is plucked from the 
breast for that purpose only, and increases in amount as the 
increased complement of eggs demands a greater amount of 
covering. ~The eggs are never placed on the down; Phe 
nest, when first scratched, is usually left to dry-out several days 
before it is used, as the bare spots were seen sometimes a week 
before an egg was deposited. With the first egg, only a little 
down is found in the nest, and it will be replaced two or three 
times if removed. When the nest is full of eggs, and they, with 
all the down, are removed, the bird seeks some other locality for 
again laying fewer eggs, generally not more than five for the 
second nest. (7urner.) 
This bird breeds in immense numbers on the coast and islands 
of Liverpool Bay. The nest is usually a shallow cavity in the 
ground, more or less plentifully lined with down. The eggs are 
generally five, and but rarely six or seven, in number, of a pale 
sea-green colour with a tinge of olive. We found some nests on 
a sloping bank at a distance of three or four hundred feet from 
the sea. Others were found onthe mainland, but the bulk of those 
secured by us were obtained from sandy islets in the bays. (Jac- 
Jarlane.) 
162. King Eider. 
Somatertia spectabilis (LINN.) LeEacuH. 1819. 
Said not to breed further south than Lat. 67°, but in some 
numbers at Lat. 73° ; also on the east coast of Greenland and on 
