BIRDS. 75 



Seal Islands. There tliey were in the habit of " idly floating amid the surf in flocks of fifty or 

 sixty, or basking and preening on the beaches and outlying rocks." " It may be seen all the year 

 around, excepting only when forced away by the ice-floes." 



This author was confident that the birds breed upon these islands, but he never found the 

 nests, nor did the natives know of its nesting place. The natives killed many of them in fall and 

 spring, and they are said to be not shy there and to be remarkably silent, the author quoted never 

 having heard a note from them during the whole year. As in the Aleutian Islands, they are very 

 gregarious. It is possible that many or all the birds which pass the summer about these islands 

 are barren, and hence do not seek the breeding grounds with the rest of their kind. Xorth of the 

 islands mentioned these ducks seek the streams of the interior for nesting places, and if the 

 birds found about the rock-girt shores mentioned remain there to breed the contrast in habits 

 is indeed striking. 



The Indians of the Yukon, from Xulato down, stuff the" skins of the males of this species and 

 ornament them with small strings of beads and bright colored cloth, and give them to the children 

 as toys. 



This duck is a very abundant resident on the Kear Islands. On the Commander Islands it is 

 also a common resident, but Stejneger does not think that the birds found there in summer breed, 

 being, apparently, barren. 



Eniconetta stelleri (Pall.). Steller's Duck. (Esk. V-no-fjoU luh). 



The coasts and islands of Bering Sea may be given as the eastern range of this fine duck. 

 Westward from there it breeds by tens of thousands along the north coast of Siberia, and 

 reaches the northern coast of European Eussia. 



While in the Aleutian Islands, the last of May, 1877, I found these ducks rather numerous in 

 the quiet waters of sheltered bays and fiords. They were extremely shy, however, and in spite of 

 all my efforts not a single one was secured. The residents of these islands told me that in winter 

 they are very abundant in the portions of the bays not icebound, and a great many of them are 

 killed for the table. 



Throughout the Aleutian chain Steller's Duck is a common resident, very abundant in winter 

 but less numerous in summer. It was taken at Kadiak Island by Bischoff, and from the papers 

 of Mr. Dall we learn that they winter in great numbers on Sanak Island, near the eastern end of 

 the chain. It is also a resident on the Sliumagin group in the i!forth Pacific, near Kadiak, and I 

 have been informed that they abound in great flocks on the north coast of Aliaska Peninsula in 

 summer. 



Dall found them gregarious in winter and associating with the King Eider, but keeping away 

 from other species. The pairing commences the first of May, and thence through the mating 

 season they are found in pairs. 



The same author states that if a nest is visited the birds abandon it at once. He found a nest 

 May IS, IS72, on a flat part of a small island near Unalaska. It was built between two tussocks 

 of dry grass, and the depression was carefully lined with the same material. The nest was entirely 

 concealed by overhanging grasses, and was revealed only by the bird flying out at his feet. The 

 nest contained a single egg. He noted the following variation of the iris of this bird at different 

 seasons: November 21, dark-brown; December 18, pale-brown; May 18, red-bi'owu. In May, 

 1872, this species and the Pacific Eider were abundant at Unalaska, whereas in May, 1873, 

 although the season was later, not a single one of either species could be found, a good illus- 

 tration of the variation in distribution of these birds in different seasons. 



Upon the Fur Seal Islands this duck occurs as a straggler during the migration. In Elliott's 

 report upon these islands Dr. Cones mentions an egg of this species, in the Smithsonian collec- 

 tion, which came from Kamchatka, and measures 2.20 by l.CO, and is like the cg^ of the common 

 eider in shape, color, and texture of shell. 



On Saint Lawrence Lslaud we found Steller's Duck breeding in small numbers during the 

 summer of 1881, and along the coast of Siberia from Kamchatka north it is a regular summer 

 resident, moving south to the Aleutian and Kurile Islands on the approach of winter. 



