DUCKS 2121 



hollow had beeti filled with ducks. A windmill was infested, and so were all the 

 outhouses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. The ducks were everywhere. Many were 

 so tame that we could stroke them on their nests; and the good lady told us that 

 there was scarcely a duck on the island that would not allow her to take its eggs 

 without flight or fear." In all cases the eiders build on the ground, and their not 

 very numerous eggs are of some shade of green. In Labrador, where the numbers 

 of these valuable birds have been greatly reduced by " eggers," Mr. A. S. Packard, 

 writing of his experiences many years ago, observes that in the middle of June, 

 "all the eiders were busy in making their nests and in laying their eggs. The old 

 or completed nests contained a great mass of down, and were twelve to fifteen inches 

 in outside diameter, the downy moss in which the eggs sank being five or six inches 

 high; the newer nests were without down, and there were about five eggs to a nest. 

 Most of the nests which we saw were built on low land near pools, and not far from 

 the sea water, in a dense thicket of dwarf spruce trees. ' ' The species referred to in 

 this account is the American eider (S. dresseri), which differs from the common kind 

 by the greater convexity of the beak, and the greater development of the elongated 

 scapulars. The nest is formed of seaweed, lined with down from the body of the 

 female bird, the lining being gradually added during the month occupied by incuba- 

 tion, till at length it reaches such an amount as to completely conceal the eggs. 

 The product of down yielded by a single nest is about one-sixth of a pound; the 

 local value of the commodity varying from three to four dollars per pound. Al- 

 though such thoroughly-gregarious birds at all seasons, it is somewhat remarkable 

 that the males of none of the eiders take any share in the work of incubation. 



The pied Labrador duck (S. labradoria) is a species which may be included 

 among the eiders, although frequently referred to a distinct genus ( Camptolamus) . 

 A handsome bird, formerly abundant on the coast of Labrador and the mouth of 

 the St. Lawrence, it appears to have become extinct since 1852. 



The black marine ducks known as scoters, derive their scientific 

 title (GLdemia) from their swollen or basally tuberculate beaks, 

 which are deep, large, and strong, with the tip much depressed, and entirely covered 

 by the large, flat nail; the oval and lateral nostrils being placed near the middle 

 of the beak. The wings are pointed and rather short, and the graduated tail is 

 likewise short and pointed. Placed relatively-far back on the body, the legs are 

 noticeable for the shortness of the metatarsus, while the large feet are char- 

 acterized by the second toe being fully as long as the third. In the males the 

 color is black, with or without white on the head or wing, while in the females 

 it is dusky grayish brown. The scoters, of which there are five species, although 

 confined to the Northern Hemisphere, are far less exclusively Arctic birds than the 

 eiders. The common scoter (E. nigm), which inhabits a large portion of Europe 

 and Northern Asia, is characterized by the entire plumage of the male being black. 

 In Japan and North America it is replaced by the American scoter (CE. americana), 

 in which the whole of the protuberance at the base of the beak is orange yellow, 

 instead of mainly blackish blue. The velvet scoter ((E. fusca), which is also a 

 winter visitor to the British Islands, although far less common than the preceding, 

 differs in that the male has a small white patch behind the eye, and a white 



