EIDER DUCK. 301 



the body of St. Cuthbert, which had been interred in the 

 church, as one of their most precious relics. After the 

 saints body had been in a state of almost perpetual transit 

 for nearly two centuries, he at length made choice of 

 Durham, as a final resting-place, and thither the See of 

 Lindisfarn was transferred, with the remains of St. Cuth- 

 bert, in 995. Though Lindisfarn thus lost its importance 

 as a bishop's see, it was not entirely deserted as a place 

 of religious abode ; for a cell of Benedictine monks, de- 

 pendent on the abbey at Durham, was afterwards esta- 

 blished there, which continued to the suppression of the 

 monasteries by Henry the Eighth." 



Mr. J. Macgillivray, who visited the outer Hebrides in 

 the summer of 1840, mentions that these birds breed on 

 several of the islands there, more particularly that called 

 Haskir. Mr. Bullock brought nest, down, eggs, and young 

 birds, from Papa Westra, one of the Orkneys in 1812 ; 

 and this species has since been observed on the islands of 

 Orkney and Shetland by Mr. Drosier, Mr. Salmon, Mr. 

 Dunn, and others, from 1828 to the present time. Mr. 

 Hewitson mentions that the Eider was the most numerous 

 of the Ducks breeding on some of the islands on the west 

 coast of Norway, where they are strictly protected. Upon 

 one island which Mr. Hewitson and his friend visited, in 

 company with the keeper, the females were sitting in great 

 numbers, and were so perfectly tame, and on such fami- 

 liar terms with him, that they did not appear to be in the 

 least disturbed whilst we stood by to look at them, and 

 some of them would even allow him to stroke them on 

 the back with his hand. The male birds at this time were 

 floating about in hundreds among the islands, giving the 

 sea a lively and even beautiful appearance. Earl Derby^s 

 principal menagerie keeper, who was sent to Sweden in 



