384 LABRADOR 
Among the tube-nosed swimmers, the greater and sooty 
shearwaters may sometimes be found in summer in flocks 
of several thousand along this rugged coast. These birds, 
however, do not breed here. In fact, they are spending 
their winter in the neighbourhood, for they breed in the 
Antarctic regions in their summer, our winter. Wilson’s 
petrel also wanders here in the same way, while the stormy 
petrel wanders from its breeding grounds along the coast 
of the British Isles. Leache’s petrel, however, is a true 
inhabitant,and breeds on the Labrador coast. Both the 
common and the double-crested cormorant, weird-looking 
birds, commonly called ‘‘shags,’’ breed on the southern 
shore. A small colony of gannets also are still to be found 
there. 
Many species of ducks migrate along the Labrador coast, 
seeking and returning from their breeding places farther 
north. Others breed on the coast or in the interior on the 
shores of rivers or ponds. Perhaps the most conspicuous 
bird in this group, one that still attempts to hide its nest 
from devastating man or Eskimo dog, along the shores of 
the sea-coast, is the American eider. In its nest it lays from 
five to eight large, pale greenish eggs slightly tinged with 
olive. These eggs it protects and keeps warm with the 
eider-down which it plucks from its breast. They are 
large birds, and generally flyin single file low over the water. 
The strikingly marked males, with the black bellies and 
white breasts, necks,and backs, are easily recognized. The 
female is a great brownish bird, looking very dark in some 
lights, and entirely lacks distinctive markings. Both sexes 
have, however, a characteristic way of holding the bill 
pointing obliquely downward at an angle, instead of straight 
