THE EIDEE DUCK. 249 



There seems to be some considerable difference between the 

 down taken from the dead bird and that which the female plucks 

 from her breast. The lightness and elasticity of the latter are 

 such that two or three pounds of it squeezed into a ball which 

 may be held in the hand will expand so as to fill a quilt large 

 enough to cover a bed. When the female prepares her nest, 

 she lines it as above mentioned ; when she has laid her four or 

 six eggs, which are about three inches in length and two in 

 breadth, she strips herself a second time ; should this down be 

 abstracted, as it generally is, and she is unable to supply more, 

 the male submits himself to the same plucking process, his contri- 

 bution being known by its paler colour. 



The haunts of a bird yielding so valuable an article are carefully 

 watched, and proprietors do everything in their power to attract 

 them to their land ; and in Scotland and Norway the districts 

 resorted to by the Eider Ducks are strictly preserved, everything 

 likely to disturb them being carefully guarded against. Pennant 

 thus records a visit he paid to one of their breeding-places in the 

 Earn Islands on the 15th of July, 1769 : " I found the Ducks 

 sitting," he writes, "and I took some of the nests, the base of 

 which was formed of sea-plants and covered with the down. 

 After separating it carefully from the plants it weighed only three- 

 quarters of an ounce, yet was so elastic that it filled a greater 

 space than the crown of the largest hat. These birds are not 

 numerous on the isles, and it was observed that the Drakes kept on 

 the side most remote from the sitting-places. The Ducks continue 

 on the nest till you come almost to them, and when they rise, they 

 are very slow fliers. The eggs are of a pale olive colour, large, 

 glossy, and smooth ; they are from three to four, warmly bedded 

 in down." Sir George Mackenzie, in his " Travels in Iceland," 

 says that " the boat in its approach to Vidoe passed multitudes of 

 Eider Ducks, which hardly moved out of the way ; and between 

 the landing-place and the governor's house it required some 

 caution to avoid treading on the nests, while the Drakes were 

 walking about even more familiar than common Ducks. The Ducks 

 were sitting on their nests all round the house, on the garden 

 wall, on the roof, in the inside of the house, and on the chapel." 



The locality where the Eiders make their nests is always diffi- 



