462 NESTING. 



The largest bird that we on any occasion killed, did not weigh 

 fully seven pounds. 



The female forms her nest of sea-weed, bent grass and 

 other coarse material, and often in very bleak and exposed 

 situations. Most commonly it is placed near to the water, 

 but very frequently a long distance from thence, and high 

 up one or two hundred feet on some stony islet. She 

 lines it with a quantity of the soft and elastic down from 

 her own body ; and at the end of April, or beginning of 

 May, lays from five to six eggs of a pale green colour, the 

 size of those of a goose. It happens occasionally, we are 

 told, that two or three females deposit their eggs in the 

 same nest, and in company sit amicably upon them. To 

 this point I cannot, from actual observation, speak positively ; 

 but I have frequently seen more than one female with 

 the same young brood, which somewhat countenances the 

 received notion. 



In those parts of Scandinavia where the eider is protected, 

 it is so tame, we read, as to nest not only in the boat- 

 houses, but in the very huts of the fishermen ; and moreover, 

 the female will allow herself to be handled whilst upon the 

 nest. Such domesticity, however, was not common in 

 our Skargard, where this bird was subject to considerable 

 persecution; for in most instances, when one approached 

 pretty near to the nest, she at once took flight and left the 

 eggs to their fate. 



Pontoppidan gives a somewhat curious account of the pro- 

 ceedings of the eider during the breeding season. " If the 

 first five eggs are stole away," he says, " then the bird lays 

 again, but only three, and in another nest ; if these are lost, 

 then she lays one more. Four weeks the mother sits alone 



