3816 The Zoologist — January, 1874. 



would; but moulting put flight out of the question completely. 

 We placed the dead en cache out of the reach of foxes under a 

 heap of heavy stones, and then continued our walk in the direction 

 of the mountains, expecting to find some good plants near the 

 glaciers. How Kidd fired at a longtailed skua, and we watched a 

 black fox pursuing a ptarmigan, has already been related, — so I 

 need not repeat it here. Beyond a stiff climb up some cliffs, in which 

 Kidd after reaching the top by one route had to descend again and 

 follow mine on account of his progress being brought to a full stop 

 by an impending cornice of ice, we had little further adventure. 

 These cliffs were the resort of rotches, although they were a long 

 way ftora the sea, and high above it. 



Harelda glacialis (Longtailed Duck). — This duck occurred in 

 King's, Wiide, Treurenberg and Lomme Bays. In the first of these 

 localities a duck and drake were shot right and left by Lieut. 

 Chermside, but only the duck was secured. 



Somateria mollissima (Eider Duck). — Most of the eiders breed 

 on islands which for the time being have no ice-communication 

 with the mainland capable of being traversed by foxes. I am 

 inclined to doubt the statement sometimes made by writers that the 

 drake is in the habit of supplying down for another nest, should the 

 first nest, upon which the duck's down is expended, be robbed. If 

 it is really the rule, it is one which does not always obtain. For 

 amongst the many examples brought on board I did not find one 

 drake with its breast denuded. On the other hand, we noticed 

 many second nests, none of which had the appearance of having 

 the whole down of a drake in them: they all looked very shabby, 

 as if the duck had been obliged to put up with anything that she 

 could get. Such as had any down in their composition had much 

 less than the standard amount, and that was largely adulterated with 

 an admixture of foreign matters. If it was on the beach, the down 

 was eked out with sea-weed; if elsewhere, with moss. Sometimes 

 ducks were reduced to laying their eggs on the bare ground without 

 any sort of packing whatever round them. In addition to these 

 facts, it should be considered that the eider drake seems to take no 

 share in the work of incubation. We saw none but ducks on any 

 of the nests found by us. The drakes, whilst the ducks are sitting, 

 flock together like rein-ganders on the water — only on the sea, and 

 not on lakes as they do. And in the absence of any abnormal 

 condition of the subcutaneous circulation, such as predisposes birds 



