200 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



her plumage presenting a quaker-like mixture of 

 different shades of brown and grey. Her nest, 

 which is usually in an exposed situation, is com- 

 posed of coarse marine grass, seaweed, or bent, 

 and is invariably lined with a considerable quan- 

 tity of fine elastic down, which she plucks from 

 her breast, and in which the eggs, four and some- 

 times five in number, are more than half con- 

 cealed. It is even said that she will persevere in 

 this operation and continue to lay after both eggs 

 and down have been removed, and that when her 

 bosom has been at last quite denuded, her faithful 

 partner will contribute to the stock by drawing 

 largely on the resources of his own warm waist- 

 coat, as long as a single egg remains in the nest. 

 Like every other rare and important article of 

 commerce, it is apt to be adulterated, and is fre- 

 quently mixed with that of gulls, puffins, and 

 divers, by which its value is greatly deteriorated, 

 but the genuine eider-down is so fine and almost 

 impalpable, until pressed together, that, according 

 to Pennant, a quantity sufficient to fill a hat will 

 weigh no more than three quarters of an ounce, 

 and another authority (Wilson) states that al- 

 though three pounds weight may be compressed 

 into the size of a man's fist, yet such are its elastic 

 powers, that when shaken out it will expand so 

 as to fill a quilt five feet square. 



