THE LABRADOR JOURNAL 373 



Coolidge landed, or indeed approached the islands on 

 which they breed, they all rose in the air, passed high 

 overhead, screaming and scolding all the time the young 

 men were on the land. When one is shot the rest 

 plunge towards it, and can then be easily shot. Some- 

 times when wounded in the body, they sail off to extraor- 

 dinary distances, and are lost. The same is the case 

 with the Larus marimts. When our captain returned he 

 brought about a dozen female Eider Ducks, a great num- 

 ber of their eggs, and a bag of down; also a fine Wild 

 Goose, but nothing new for the pencil. In one nest of 

 the Eider ten eggs were found ; this is the most we have 

 seen as yet in any one nest. The female draws the down 

 from her abdomen as far towards her breast as her bill 

 will allow her to do, but the feathers are not pulled, and 

 on examination of several specimens I found these well 

 and regularly planted, and cleaned from their original 

 down, as a forest of trees is cleared of its undergrowth. 

 In this state the female is still well clothed, and little or 

 no difference can be seen in the plumage unless exam- 

 ined. These birds have now nearly all hatched in this 

 latitude, but we are told that we shall over-reach them in 

 that, and meet with nests and eggs as we go northeast 

 until August. So abundant were the nests of these birds 

 on the islands of Partridge Bay, about forty miles west of 

 this place, that a boat load of their eggs might have been 

 collected if they had been fresh ; they are then excellent 

 eating. Our captain called on a half-breed Indian in the 

 employ of the Northeast Fur and Fish Co., living with 

 his squaw and two daughters. A potato patch of about 

 an acre was planted in sand, for not a foot of soil is there 

 to be found hereabouts. The man told him his potatoes 

 grew well and were good, ripening in a few weeks, which 

 he called the summer. The mosquitoes and black gnats 

 are bad enough on shore. I heard a Wood Pewee. The 

 Wild Goose is an excellent diver, and when with its 



