Sea and Bay Ducks 



are not swept away by the swift current of the stream they 

 take to and live on, without returning to the nest once it is left, 

 testifies to the remarkable propelling power of their feet. These 

 ducks are most expert divers, too, and when alarmed will plunge 

 like a grebe, and swim under water to parts unknown. 



American Eider 



(Somateria dresseri) 



Called also: SEA DUCK 



Length 23 inches. 



Male Upper parts white, except the crown of head, which is 

 black, with a greenish white line running into it from behind 

 and a greenish tinge on the feathers at sides of back of head. 

 Upper breast white with a reddish blush; lower breast and 

 all under parts, including tail above and below, black. 



Female Upper parts buffy brown, streaked and varied with darker 

 brown and black; back darkest; breast yellow buff, barred 

 with black, and shading into grayish brown, indistinctly mar- 

 gined with buff underneath. 



Range Nests around Nova Scotia and Labrador, migrating south- 

 ward in winter to New England and the Great Lakes, more 

 rarely south to Delaware. 



Season Winter visitor. 



When resting under our down coverlets on a winter night, 

 or tucked about with pillows on the divan of a modern drawing- 

 room, how many of us give a thought to the duck that has been 

 robbed of her soft warm feathers for our comfort, or take the 

 trouble to make her acquaintance when she brings the brood that 

 were despoiled of their bedding to furnish ours to visit our coast 

 in winter ? It may be said in extenuation of our apparent indif- 

 ference that eiders keep well out at sea, and come at a season 

 when boating ceases to be a pleasure. Then, too, there is little 

 to interest one during the winter in a bird whose chief concern 

 appears to be deep diving. It is on the constant errand of getting 

 mussels and other fish food which the saddle-back gull often 

 snatches from it at the end of an unequal race if the duck, does 

 not end it suddenly by plunging under water. It is to Labrador 

 and the north Atlantic islands that one must go to know this bird 



128 



