198 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



the British shores especially the remoter parts 

 of Scotland during the season of incubation, 

 have now become exceedingly scarce at that 

 period of the year even in localities apparently 

 well adapted to their habits. The high value at- 

 tached to the eggs of the rarer species, as cabinet 

 specimens, has mainly contributed to this result, 

 for the vast quantities that appear in the London 

 markets during the winter months which are 

 mainly supplied from the decoys of Holland, 

 or from the now declining establishments of a 

 similar kind in our own country have nearly all 

 passed the preceding summer in the boundless 

 morasses of Scandinavia or of eastern Europe. 

 But perhaps of all birds that have been doomed 

 to contribute to the comforts or luxuries of man, 

 without at the same time paying the penalty of 

 death, the eider duck (somateria mollissima) is the 

 most remarkable, and its history the most interest- 

 ing. The eider is to the native of Shetland and 

 to some of the remoter islands farther north, what 

 the reindeer is to the Laplander, and the seal to 

 the Greenland fisherman, supplying him at once 

 with food and raiment. It has been found in the 

 highest latitudes yet discovered by man, both in 

 Europe and America, and is abundant on the 

 coast of Greenland, and on certain islands on 

 the western shores of Norway, where the birds 



