252 P1UTISH BIRDS 



nearly black, with a white patch on each side of the latter ; breast 

 rosy buff ; abdomen black ; legs and feet dull green. Length , tw< -i 1 1 \ 

 live inches. Female : rufous-brown barred with blackish. 



The male eider is a large and strikingly handsome duck in its 

 conspicuous and strongly contrasted colours velvet-black and snow v 

 white, variegated with buff and delicate pale sea-green. But it is 

 exclusively a sea-duck, living most of the time away from land, and 

 most people know it only by name, as the bird that yields the ex- 

 ceedingly light and elastic down with which bed-quilts are stuffed. 

 It inhabits the northern coasts of Great Britain, its most southern 

 breeding-station being on the Fame Islands, off the coast of 

 Northumberland. It is gregarious at all seasons, and is usually seen 

 in small flocks on the sea. It sits lightly on the water, swims 

 and dives well, and flies rapidly near the surface. It feeds much 

 near the shore, but seldom comes to land, except in the breeding 

 season. Its food is obtained at the bottom of the sea, and Mr. A. 

 Chapman says of its feeding habits : ' The eider resembles the scaup 

 in many of its habits, and both ducks are intimately acquainted 

 with the local geography of the sea-bottom : all its depth for miles, 

 and the position of every submerged reef and shallow, are well 

 known to them. But while the scaup contents himself with the 

 smaller shellfish and Crustacea, the eider, with his strong hooked 

 beak, can crush and devour dog-crabs nearly as broad as one's fist.' 

 Charles Dixon thus describes its language and love-making : ' It is 

 a remarkably silent bird, except in the breeding season, when I have 

 often heard the male utter a note something like that of the ring- 

 dove, as he swam round and round his mate, bobbing his head 

 rapidly all the time. On one occasion I met with a party of these 

 birds evidently engaged in pairing, my attention being drawn to 

 them by a chorus of grunting notes the males were uttering. It 

 was a most animated sight, and the drakes were constantly chasing 

 each other with angry cries, or swimming excitedly round the ducks, 

 with trembling wings and heads swaying up and down. The noise 

 made by this party of eiders could be distinctly heard a mile across 

 the water.' 



The nest, as a rule, is placed near the sea, sometimes on the tops 

 of lofty cliffs, and is usually concealed among the coarse grass, heath, 

 and herbage that grow in such situations. It is a hollow lined 

 with fine grass and seaweed, and a quantity of clown plucked from 

 the under parts of the sitting-bird. The eggs are five to seven in 



