ETDEH DUCK. 



Both the male and female Eider Ducks work in concert 

 in building their nest, laying a rather coarse foundation of 

 drift grass, dry tangle, and sea-weed, which is collected in 

 some quantity. Upon this rough mattress the female- spreads 

 a bed of the finest down, plucked from her own breast, and 

 by no means sparingly; but, as Brunnich informs us, heaping 

 it up, so as to form a thick roll quite round the nest. 

 When she is necessitated to go in quest of food after 

 beginning to sit, she carefully turns this roll of down over 

 the eggs to keep them warm till her return. Marten says 

 she mixes the down with moss; but as this is not recorded 

 by another observer, I think it is not a little doubtful, 

 particularly as in the localities chosen for nestling she would 

 find it no easy matter to procure moss. It is worthy of 

 remark, that though the Eider Duck lays only five or six 

 eggs, it is not uncommon to find more than even ten and 

 upwards in the same nest, occupied by two females, who live 

 together in perfect concord. 



The quantity of down in each nest is said by Von Troil 

 to be about half a pound, which by cleaning is reduced to 

 a half; by Pennant, who examined the Eiders' nests in the 

 Fern Islands, off Northumberland, it is only estimated, when 

 cleaned, at three quarters of an ounce, and this was so 

 elastic as to fill the crown of the largest hat. The difference 

 of quality in these two accounts, theoretically ascribed by 

 the translator of Buffori to difference of climate, may have 

 arisen from the one being the first, and the other the second 

 or third nest of the mother Duck; for if the first nest be 

 plundered of the down, though she immediately builds a 

 second, she cannot furnish it with the same quantity as 

 before; and if forced to build a third time, having then 

 stript her breast of all she could spare, the male is said to 

 furnish what is wanting, which is known as being considerably 

 whiter than the female's. When the nest is not robbed, it 

 is said that he furnishes none. 



The extraordinary elasticity of the down appears from what 

 I have already said of three quarters of an ounce filling a 

 large hat; and Pontoppidan says that two or three pounds 

 of it, though pressed into a bail which may be held in the 

 hand, upon being allowed to expand will fill the foot covering 

 of a large bed. It is worthy of notice, however, that it is 

 only the down taken from the nests which has this great 

 elasticity; for what is taken from the dead birds is much 



