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Genus SOMATERIA. 



Anas apud Linnseus, Syst. Nat. i. p 198 (1766). 



Anser apud Leach, Syst. Cat. M. & B. Brit. Mus. p. 37 (1816). 



Somateria, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 564. 



Clcmgula apud Boie, ut supra. 



Fuligula apud Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. ii. p. 206 (1824). 



Macropus apud Nuttall, Man. Ora. U. S. ii. p. 451 (1834). 



Polysticta apud Eyton, Hist. Rar. Brit. B. p. 79 (1836). 



Stelleria apud Bonaparte, Comp. List, p. 57 (1838). 



Eniconetta apud Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 95 (1840). 



Harelda apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. 230 (1840). 



Heniconetta apud Agassiz, Nomencl. Zool. Ind. Univ. p. 178 (1846). 



The Eiders inhabit the northern portions of the Palaearctic and Nearctic Regions, three species 

 being resident in the Western Palaearctic Region. By many authors one of these, Somateria 

 stelleri, has been separated generically from the true Eiders, and has received several generic 

 titles from various authorities ; but it is in every respect so true an Eider that it appeal's 

 unadvisable to separate it, and I have therefore ranged it in this genus. The Eiders are 

 essentially marine Ducks, never being found away from the sea. They have a strong, rapid 

 flight, and usually fly at no great altitude above the water. They swim and dive with great 

 ease, obtaining their food chiefly by diving. They feed on Crustacea, mollusca, and radiata. 

 Their nests are placed on the ground, usually under a bush or stone, and consist of a depression 

 scratched in the ground and filled with down intermixed with small twigs, grass, &c. They 

 usually breed in company ; and Somateria mollissima frequently places its nest close to human 

 habitations, and is carefully preserved and protected in order that the valuable down with which 

 its nest is cushioned may be collected. Their eggs, which vary in number from five to eight or 

 nine, are pale greenish-grey in colour, and rather smooth in surface of shell. 



Somateria mollissima, the type of the genus, has the bill nearly as long as the head, higher 

 than broad at the base, depressed towards the end, where it is narrowed and rounded ; upper 

 mandible with the lateral sinus large, the frontal angles long, narrow, soft, and tumid ; unguis 

 large, roundish, slightly convex ; gape-line curved, the ends of the lamellae not projecting ; 

 nostrils large, elongated, oval, submedian ; trachea of nearly uniform width, with a transversely 

 oblong dilatation at the lower end projecting more on the left side ; bronchi very wide ; wings 

 rather short, pointed, the second quill longest, secondaries elongated, tapering, curved in a sickle- 

 shape outwards; tail short, rounded, stiff, slightly decurvate. 



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