1890.] Clarke on Birds, from Hudson's Bay. 3*9 



the United States Government has built out from the north shore 

 of Nantucket, close to the harbor entrance where boats are con- 

 tinually passing, a rough stone jetty nearly a mile long, at the ex- 

 tremity of which is an iron rod with a moveable red lantern for 

 the use of the daily steamboat. Last year the man who tends 

 the light told me that as the mussels were growing there in con- 

 siderable quantity they were attracting the Shoal Ducks, or 

 Eiders, which were coming daily in increasing numbers to feed 

 on them, frequently crawling out of the water onto the rocks. 

 They continued to arrive in greater numbers until some eight 

 hundred had collected, when they commenced to shoot them. 

 The keeper told me that they were observing, so much so that 

 they perceived a difference if the lantern was not in place at the 

 top of the iron rod, and if he did not desire to have any shoot- 

 ing there, all he had to do was to leave the lantern half way 

 down the rod instead of in place at the top, and no Ducks could 

 be induced to come near the jetty to ked, although sitting off on 

 the water in detached groups, where they could observe every- 

 thing that took place. I should estimate the number of Eiders 

 living around this jetty at present (March 27, 1S90) to be about 

 fifteen hundred. 



ON A COLLECTION OF BIRDS FROM FORT 

 CHURCHILL, HUDSON'S BAY. 



BY W. EAGLE CLARKE. 



In the year 1S45, Dr. Gillespie, Junior, presented to the 

 Edinburgh Museum a series of bird skins collected by himself 

 during his residence at Fort Churchill as an officer of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company. This collection has hitherto remained un- 

 recorded, but an account of it may, perhaps, be deemed worthy 

 of a place in 'The Auk' since it is thought that little or nothing 

 has been contributed to the avifauna of the district around this 

 station — the most northerly outpost of civilized man's residence 

 on the western shores of this great inland sea. 



