EIDER DUCK. 347 



she sinks her body in the water, and receives them on her back, where 

 they remain several minutes. At the approach of their merciless enemy, 

 the Black-backed Gull, the mother beats the water with her wings, as if 

 intending to raise the spray around her, and on her uttering a peculiar 

 sound, the young dive in all directions, while she endeavours to entice the 

 marauder to follow her, by feigning lameness, or she leaps out of the wa- 

 ter and attacks her enemy, often so vigorously, that, exhausted and dis- 

 appointed, he is glad to fly off, on which she alights near the rocks, among 

 which she expects to find her brood, and caUs them to her side. Now 

 and then I saw two females which had formed an attachment to each other, 

 as if for the purpose of more effectually contributing to the safety of their 

 young, and it was very seldom that I saw these prudent mothers assailed 

 by the gull. 



The young, at the age of one week, are of a dark mouse colour, thickly 

 covered with soft warm down. Their feet at this period are proportion- 

 ally very large and strong. By the 20th of July they seemed to be all 

 hatched. They grew rapidly, and when about a fortnight old were, with 

 great difficulty, obtained, unless during stormy weather, when they at 

 times retired from the sea to shelter themselves under the shelvings of the 

 rocks at the head of shallow bays. It is by no means difficult to rear 

 them, provided proper care be taken of them, and they soon become quite 

 gentle and attached to the place set apart for them. A fisherman of 

 Eastport, who carried eight or ten of them from Labrador, kept them 

 several years in a yard close to the water of the bay, to which, after they 

 were grown, they daily betook themselves, along with some common ducks, 

 regularly returning on shore towards evening. Several persons who had 

 seen them, assured me that they were as gentle as their associates, and al- 

 though not so active on land, were better swimmers, and moved more 

 gracefully on the water. They were kept until the male birds acquired 

 their perfect plumage and mated ; but some gunners shot the greater 

 number of them one winter day, having taken them for wild birds, al- 

 though none of them could fly, they having been pinioned. I have no 

 doubt that if this valuable bird were domesticated, it would prove a great 

 acquisition, both on account of its feathers and down, and its flesh as an 

 article of food. I am persuaded that very little attention would be neces- 

 sary to effect this object. When in captivity, it feeds on different kinds 

 of grain and moistened corn-meal, and its flesh becomes excellent. Indeed, 

 the sterile females which we procured at Labrador in considerable num. 



