Sea and Bay Ducks 



at home, and most of us are willing to do such travelling in the 

 easy chairs of our library. 



Before these ducks have left our shores in March, courting 

 has already begun ; sharp contests occur, and the vanquished or 

 superannuated males wander about in milder climates than the 

 mated lovers fly to. Though no drake may be credited with 

 great depth of feeling for his mate, the eider goes to the extreme 

 of helping her make a nest of moss and seaweed among the 

 rocks or low bushes under stunted fir trees, and will even pluck 

 the down from his own breast to cover the eggs when hers has 

 been persistently robbed. Ha-ho, ha-ho, he half moans, half coos, 

 in a lackadaisical tone to the busy housewife who replies with 

 a matter-of-fact quack, like any prosaic barnyard duck. Until 

 the last one of her bluish or olive gray eggs is laid, the 

 mother plucks no down from her breast ; but she will continue 

 to lay, and to cover the new eggs with her feathers, several times 

 over if her nest is robbed, until her poor breast is naked and the 

 drake's down is called into requisition. According to Saunders 

 the average yield of down from a nest in Iceland, where the 

 birds are encouraged and protected by law, is about one-sixth 

 of a pound. The gathering of these live feathers, as they are 

 called, for no one thinks of killing this valuable bird or its allies 

 to take their down which loses its elasticity after death, is 

 an important industry in the northern countries of Europe ; but 

 the industry is neglected and unintelligently managed on this side 

 of the Atlantic. When all the eggs and down are taken from 

 a nest repeatedly, the despairing birds abandon it for more re- 

 mote parts, and never return ; whereas hope eternally springs in 

 a breast even where feathers do not, if an egg or two are left the 

 mother. Audubon found large colonies of the American eider 

 nesting in Labrador in April, and gathered some fresh eggs for 

 food in May, when ice was still thick in the rivers. He found 

 both ravens and the larger gulls prowling about the coast ready 

 to suck the eggs and carry off the ducklings before they had 

 mastered the art of diving out of harm's reach. 



While the females sit upon their nests the drakes withdraw 

 for a thorough moult, which leaves them so bare of feathers in 

 July that they are sometimes unable to fly. Henceforth they live 

 apart, he in flocks of males, she with small companies of mothers 

 with their broods, which latter are usually the flocks that visit 

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