354 FLAMINGOES, DUCKS, AND SCREAMERS. 
All the eiders are exclusively dwellers on rocky coasts, where 
they subsist mainly on molluscs and crustaceans; and while they are 
birds of slow and heavy, although powerful flight, and are at the same time 
clumsy walkers on land, in the sea, which is their true home, they are most expert 
divers and swimmers. Iceland and the Farn Islands are well-known breeding- 
resorts.of the common eider; and the following account of a colony on a small 
Habits. 















































































































































































































EIDER-DUCKS AND NEST (;8; nat. size). 
island near the former locality is taken from Mr. C. W. Sheppard. On landing, 
that observer writes, “the ducks and their nests were everywhere. Great brown 
ducks sat upon their nests in masses, and at every step started from under our 
feet. It was with difficulty we avoided treading on some of the nests. On the 
coast of the opposite shore was a wall built of large stones, just above the high- 
water level, about 3 feet in height, and of considerable thickness. At the bottom, 
on both sides of it, alternate stones had been left out, so as to form a series of 
