226 WATER FOWL, 



stones, all of which are occupied in the season by sitting 

 birds, and so closely are the nests placed to each other 

 that one can hardly move among them without stepping 

 upon a Duck or an egg. In such colonies as these the 

 Eider become very tame, and frequently will not leave 

 the nest when a person approaches, and some allow the 

 inhabitants of the island, whom they are accustomed to 

 see daily, to stroke their feathers or remove the eggs 

 from beneath them without more remonstrance than is 

 usually made by a hen under similar circumstances. By 

 the time the full complement of eggs is laid, the down 

 has been gradually increased in the nest, until at length 

 the quantity becomes so large that the eggs are entirely 

 concealed and covered by it. The nests are made of 

 sea-weed, and the eggs, five or six of which are a full 

 complement, are a pale green color. 



When incubation has commenced the males retire to 

 the sea and remain in flocks near the shore, leading an 

 idle, careless kind of a bachelor life, free from all family 

 duties, and when moulting time arrives they go farther 

 out to sea, and do not return to the females and young 

 until the autumn. Incubation lasts about a month, and 

 the young are conducted to the water by the female, 

 sometimes carried there in her bill, and she remains with 

 her little family until they are full grown and are joined 

 by the males, later in the year. This Duck does not 

 seem to mind cold, and has been known to endure a 

 temperature of 50 below zero without any incon- 

 venience. Of course it could remain in such extreme 

 frost only in places where the water was kept open, and 

 comparatively free from ice, by the rapidity of the cur- 

 rent or tide rifts. 



The Eider is a great diver and remains a long time 

 under water. It feeds chiefly on mollusks which it pro- 



