14 TowNSEND, Conservation of the Eider. [jaa. 



A PLEA FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE EIDER.^ 



BY CHARLES WENDELL TOWNSEND, M. D. 



The treatment of that magnificent duck the Eider (Somateria 

 dresseri) along our Atlantic coast is rapidly leading to its extermi- 

 nation. This duck which is locally known as " Sea Duck," " Laying 

 Duck," "Shoreyer," "Eskimo Duck," "Moynak," and "Metic," 

 is everywhere diminishing in numbers. In Maine they were at one 

 time reduced to a few pairs, but, by enforcement of laws and by 

 reservations watched over by wardens, they are beginning to 

 increase. I believe there are only two or three cases of their 

 breeding at the present time on the Nova Scotia coast. On the 

 Newfoundland coast their numbers are pitifully few where once 

 they abounded. The coast of Labrador formerly swarmed with 

 these birds, and the islands were thickly covered with their nests. 

 All the ornithologists from the time of Audubon to the present day 

 who have visited this coast have bewailed the fact that the Eider 

 was signaled out for destruction. 



In 1906 Dr. G. M. Allen and I saw only about seventy of these 

 birds on the long stretch of the eastern coast of Labrador between 

 Battle Harbor and Hamilton Inlet. This is a region that is 

 visited by a large number of Newfoundland fishermen in summer, 

 and its coast is dotted with the fishing hamlets of the residents or 

 liveyeres as they are called. The men know every nook and cranny 

 of the coast, shoot the birds in great numbers in both fall and spring 

 migrations, take their eggs and down whenever they find them and 

 even shoot the setting females. In visiting their fishing traps in 

 the height of the breeding season they often take their guns along 

 with them so that few birds escape. North of Hamilton Inlet the 

 Northern Eider {Somateria inolUssima horealis) is persecuted by the 

 Esquimaux of the Moravian villages as well as by the fishermen, 

 \ The same condition of affairs exist on the southern coast where 

 Eiders are persecuted not only by the white fishermen but also by 

 the Montagnais Indians, who, after disposing of their furs, the 



1 Read at the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, November 11, 

 1913. 



