71 



near the huts of the inhabitants, or even on the sodded roofs 

 of these huts. When the first downy lining is removed from 

 the nest by the collectors the bird replaces it with more down 

 from her breast. If the second lining is taken it is said that 

 the male bird then contributes a third. The people never dis- 

 turb the nest after this, but allow the birds to hatch their eggs 

 and rear their broods unmolested. Thus a supply of the ducks 

 is maintained so that the people derive from them an annual 

 income. 



In North America quite a different policy was pursued. The 

 demand for feathers became so great in the New England 

 colonies about the middle of the eighteenth century that vessels 

 were fitted out there for the coast of Labrador for the express 

 purpose of securing the feathers and down of wild-fowl. Eider 

 down having become valuable, and these ducks being in the 

 habit of congregating by thousands on barren islands of the 

 Labrador coast, the birds became the victims of the ships* 

 crews. As the ducks molt all their primary feathers at once 

 in July or August, and are then quite incapable of flight, and 

 the young birds are unable to fly until well grown, the hunters 

 were able to surround the helpless birds, drive them together 

 and kill them with clubs. Otis says that "millions" of wild- 

 fowl were thus destroyed, and that in a few years their haunts 

 were so broken up by this wholesale slaughter and their numbers 

 were so diminished that u feather voyages" became unprofitable 

 and were given up. 1 This practice (followed by the almost 

 continual egging, clubbing, shooting, etc., by Labrador fisher- 

 men) may have been a chief factor in the extinction of the 

 Labrador duck, that species of supposed restricted breeding 

 range. No doubt had the eider duck been restricted in its 

 breeding range to the islands of Labrador, it also would have 

 been exterminated long ago. After the failure of the Labrador 

 feather voyages the American market was supplied with the 

 feathers of domestic geese and with eider down imported from 

 Europe. 



> Otis, Amos: Genealogical Notes of Barnstable County [Massachusetts), Vol. I, 1885, p. 187. 



