8 Duchess of Bedford : Nine Ddijs on Grimseij 



As the promontory at tlie extreme N.E. of Iceland 

 promised to be interesting ground for the bij'd-watelicr, 1 

 went next to an anchorage on the south side of it. Ch)sc 

 to the anchorage, and separated from the sea by a bank of 

 shingle not fifty yards wide, w;is a freshwater loch, on 

 which I saw many Great Northern and Red-throated 

 Divers, the foimcr with young. The Eider-Duck was more 

 abundant than in any other place that 1 have visited. I 

 saw one female a long distance from any other birds with 

 twenty-four young ones, but I think she must have been the 

 superintendent of an Eider-Duck creche, as I cannot believe 

 that they were all her own. 



I have often wondered why the minds of people accustomed 

 to watch birds should be so much exercised over the 

 problem of how young ducks which are hatched in a nest 

 high above the water are taken down to it. Walking on a 

 clifl: here above the sea, I aceidently scattered an Eider-Duck 

 and her brood. The mother took to flight and the little 

 ones, which were in down, rolled over the edge on to rocks 

 some seventy feet below. I have often seen little birds fall 

 into water or on to grass from a height with impunity, but 

 as these had fallen on to boulders and sharp rocks, 1 thought 

 their chance of survival was small. On looking over the 

 cliff, however, I saw them })iek ihemselves up as if nothing 

 had happened and run towards their mother in the sea. 

 She obviously expected them to be alive, as she was calling 

 loudly. Evidently they are so light and well protected by 

 down that a voyage in an aeroplane woul 1 have no terrors 

 for them. 



I was ranch interested in seeing several Little Auks at 

 this place. Grimsey is said to be their most southern 

 breeding-place; but these birds were always flying about 

 the part of the shore wliere there w'cre boulders similar to 

 those ruuler which they nest in that island, and though 1 

 never saw them settle, it is rather strange that they should 

 have been here on the 14th of July unless they w^ere 

 nesting. 



A chain of lochs and low Mwanipy ground extends across 



