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localities along the coast of North America to allow the birds 

 to hatch some eggs late in the season, but the disregard of this 

 custom in many instances, and the wholesale killing of the 

 birds, destroyed or greatly reduced many of the colonies along 

 the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Unrestricted egging was re- 

 sponsible for a good part of the great diminution of sea birds in 

 Labrador. Audubon's story of the Labrador eggers published in 

 his u Ornithological Biography" clearly exhibits terrible de- 

 struction among sea birds on the Labrador coast early in the 

 nineteenth century. The business was finally forbidden by law 

 both in the United States and Canada, but some illicit egging 

 is carried on still, even in regions that receive special protection 

 by wardens. 



Feathers of Sea Birds and Wild-fowl for Bedding. 



In the colder countries of the world the feathers and down of 

 waterfowl have been in great demand for centuries as filling for 

 beds and pillows. Such feathers are perfect non-conductors of 

 heat, and beds, pillows or coverlets filled with them represent 

 the acme of comfort and durability. The early settlers of New 

 England saved for such purposes the feathers and down from 

 the thousands of wild-fowl which they killed, but as the popu- 

 lation increased in numbers the quantity thus furnished was in- 

 sufficient and the people sought a larger supply in the vast 

 colonies of ducks and geese along the Labrador coast. The 

 manner in which the feathers and down were obtained, unlike 

 the method practiced in Europe, did not tend to conserve and 

 protect the source of supply. In Iceland the natives have con- 

 tinued to receive for many years a considerable income by 

 collecting eider down, but there they do not "kill the gdbse 

 that lays the golden eggs." Ducks line their nests with down 

 plucked from their own breasts, and that of the eider is par- 

 ticularly valuable for bedding. In Iceland these birds are so 

 carefully protected that they have become as tame and un- 

 suspicious as domestic fowls. In North America, where they 

 are constantly hunted, they often conceal their nests in the 

 midst of weeds or bushes; but in Iceland they make their 

 nests and deposit their eggs in holes dug for them in the sod, 



