18 BIRDS OF IVIGTUT. 



HARLEQUIN DUCK. 



HISTRIONICTJS HISTBIONICTTS. 



Breeds in several places. Arrives in 'April and remains 

 until early in November (Nov. 5, 1887). On August 28, 

 I observed half-grown young on the fjord. During summer 

 the males gather in small flocks on the fjord. 



NORTHERN EIDER. 



SOMATEBIA MOLLISSIMA BOEEALIS. 



Breeds in great numbers on the islets by the open sea. 

 In the winter great flocks gather on the fjord near Ivigtut. 

 In June, 1886, I observed in the course of an hour between 

 five hundred and a thousand Eiders on the fjord in flocks of 

 about fifty. Each flock consisted chiefly of females, accom- 

 panied by a few males. In the evening they went up the 

 fjord as in winter, but did not go as far inland. The two 

 following summers I observed a few times smaller compa- 

 nies of females and an occasional male on the fjord. 



Holboll also met with flocks of unmated birds in summer, 

 far from their nesting-sites, and observed that the two sexes 

 generally kept separate from each other; also, that there 

 were more flocks of males than of females, and that in the 

 beginning of the breeding-season these flocks were of small 

 size. From this he concluded that these flocks consisted of 

 birds which had either lost their mates or their young. 



My observations during the summers of 1887 and 1888 

 might indeed go to strengthen Holboll's hypothesis, but it 

 does not seem to me that the mere presence of numbers 

 of these Ducks on the fjord at a great distance from their 

 breeding-ground in the beginning of the season of 1886 

 need necessarily be due to the causes suggested by Holboll. 



