344 EIDER DUCK. 



procured several females. The birds there paid little attention to us, and 

 some allowed us to approach within a few feet before they left their nests, 

 which were so numerous that a small boat-load might have been collected, 

 had the party been inclined. They were all placed amid the short grass 

 growing in the fissures of the rock, and therefore in rows, as it were. The 

 eggs were generally five or six, in several instances eight, and in one ten. 

 Not a male bird was to be seen. At the first discharge of the guns, all 

 the sitting birds flew off and ahghted in the sea, at a distance of about a 

 hundred yards. They then collected, splashed up the water, and washed 

 themselves, until the boat left the place. Many of the nests were unpro- 

 vided with down ; some had more or less than others, and some, from 

 which the female was absent when the party landed, were quite covered 

 with it, and the eggs felt warm to the hand. The musquitoes and flies 

 were there as abundant and as tormenting as in any of the Florida swamps. 

 On the 24th of the same month, two male Eiders, much advanced in 

 the moult, were shot out of a flock all composed of individuals of the 

 same sex. While rambling over the moss-covered shores of a small 

 pond, on the 7th of July, we saw two females with their young on the 

 water. As we approached the edges, the old birds lowered their heads 

 and swam off with those parts lying flat on the surface, while the young 

 followed so close as almost to touch them. On firing at them without 

 shot, they all dived at once, but rose again in a moment, the mothers 

 quacking and murmuring. The young dived again, and we saw no more 

 of them ; the old birds took to wing, and, flying over the hills, made for 

 the sea, from which we were fully a mile distant. How their young were 

 to reach it was at that time to me a riddle ; but was afterwards rendered 

 intelhgible, as you will see in the sequel. On the 9th of July, while 

 taking an evening walk, I saw flocks of female Eiders without broods. 

 They were in deep moult, kept close to the shore in a bay, and were pro- 

 bably sterile birds. On my way back to the vessel, the captain and I 

 started a female from a broad flat rock, more than a hundred yards from 

 the water, and, on reaching the spot, we found her nest, which was placed 

 on the bare surface, without a blade of grass within five yards of it. It 

 was of the usual bulky construction, and contained five eggs, deeply 

 buried in down. She flew round us until we retired, when we had the 

 pleasure to see her alight, walk to her nest, and compose herself upon it. 

 Large flocks of males kept apart, and frequented the distant sea islands 

 at this period, when scarcely any were able to fly to any distance, although 



