CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. ‘ Ili 
place. A nest was found with eleven eggs on the hillside about 
half a mile back of ‘‘the redoubt.”’ The nest which was made in a 
mossy situation, consisted of a few blades of grass and was well lined 
with sooty-coloured down from the abdomen of the bird itself. 
Along the Aleutian islands this bird prefers the steep slopes heavily 
clothed with rank grasses, such as wild rye (Elymus), which grows 
in huge tussocks, among which the nest is hidden. A slight depres- 
sion is scratched out; the eggs are placed on the bare ground, the 
down being used as a cover for the eggs when the parent is absent 
from the nest; it is plucked from the breast for that purpose only, 
and increases in amount as the increased complement of eggs demands 
a greater amount of covering. The eggs are never placed on the 
down. The nest, when first scratched, is usually left to dry out 
several days before it is used, as the bare spots were seen sometimes 
a week before an egg was deposited. With the first egg, only a 
little down is found in the nest, and it will be replaced two or three 
times if removed. When the nest is full of eggs, and they, with all 
the down, are removed, the bird seeks some other locality for again 
laying fewer eggs, generally not more than five for the second nest. 
(Turner.) Several sets of 5 to 8 eggs were collected for me by Rev. 
C. E. Whittaker on the mainland opposite Herschell island. The 
nests of down were built among rank grass growing along the sea 
coast. (Raine.) Bishop saw no specimens of living eiders at St. 
Michael or elsewhere in Alaska in 1899, so this bird may be becom- 
ing rarer in that region. 
This bird breeds in immense numbers on the coast and islands of 
Liverpool bay. The nest is usually a shallow cavity in the ground, 
more or less plentifully lined with down. The eggs are generally 
five, and but rarely six or seven, in number, of a pale sea-green 
colour with a tinge of olive. We found some nests on a sloping 
bank at a distance of three or four hundred feet from the sea. Others 
were found on the mainland, but the bulk of those secured by us 
were obtained from sandy islets in the bays. (Macjarlane.) 
162. King Eider. 
Somateria spectabilis. (LINN.) LEACH. 1819. 
Said not to breed further south than lat. 67°, but in some numbers 
at lat. 73°; also on the east coast of Greenland and on the western 
shores of Davis strait; breeds abundantly on the Parry islands. 
