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brown, and white ; rest of the under surface of the body blackish brown ; quills blackish, the secondaries 

 sickle-shaped, with a shade of white appearing at the tip of some of the outermost ; tail dark brown, 

 washed with grey, some of the shafts yellowish. 



Obs. The young male is in most respects similar to the female, but darker and less mottled and without the 

 sandy appearance of the latter. The absence of the alar bars is another distinguishing characteristic ; 

 but the most striking character appears to be the great triangular black patch on the sides of the neck. 

 On lifting the feathers of the back, some of them may be seen to be getting white, and this is also 

 apparent on the throat, showing that the bird is about to change into his more beautiful plumage. 



Young in doivn. Brown, darker on the head and lower part of the back, much paler on the upper part and 

 slightly inclining to fulvous brown ; lores and sides of the face dark brown, like the crown of the head, 

 the cheeks a little paler ; a very distinct superciliary line white ; feathers on each side of the chin white, 

 forming a triangular line ; under surface of the body pale brown, the centre of the breast and abdomen 

 silvery white. 



The Eider Duck is a common bird in Northern Europe, but is perhaps more abundant in the 

 western portion of the Palsearctic Region than in the eastern. As we shall endeavour to show 

 presently, the American Eider constitutes quite a distinct species from the European bird; and 

 therefore it has yet to be proved that the true Eider Duck ever occurs within American limits. 

 We believe that in North America its place is supplied by its near ally. Regarding the range of 

 the present species in Siberia we are also in doubt, as the recent Russian travellers do not 

 mention the bird, and the sole authority for its occurrence in the eastern Palsearctic Region 

 appears to be the record of Pallas to the effect that it is found on all the rocky shores of the 

 Arctic Ocean, and is especially common near the mouths of the Jenesei and Lena rivers, but 

 towards the sea of Kamschatka it becomes rarer, being here met with in company with the King 

 Eider (S. spectabilis). Here the author says it comes in winter on the ice from America ; so that 

 it is possible that here its range coalesces with that of the American species. 



In Scandinavia it is plentiful in certain localities; Mayer says it is found sometimes in 

 winter on the coasts of the Baltic, in the Gulf of Riga. It occurs occasionally on the northern 

 coasts of Germany ; and in Denmark, according to Kjserbolling, it breeds in small numbers on 

 some of the Danish islands, where it is protected. In Norway it is a common bird. Messrs. 

 F. and P. Godman, in their paper on the Birds observed in Bodo during the spring and summer 

 of 1857, state that it is the " commonest Duck about Bodo, where they are preserved for the 

 sake of the down collected from their nests. We found some pairs breeding on a marsh by a 

 freshwater lake, about seven miles from the sea shore ; " but Mr. R. Collett says that the Eider is 

 but a rare visitor to the neighbourhood of Christiania, occurring now and then in May or in the 

 autumn. Mr. Gillett found it " tolerably common all along the coast of Novaya Zemlya, but did 

 not see any large flocks of them." 



Professor Newton writes as follows: — "Sufficiently numerous all round Spitzbergen, but 

 becoming scarcer, according to Dr. Malmgren, towards the north. However, that gentleman, on 

 the 15th of July 1861, observed at Shoal Point, lat. 80° 10' N., flocks of hundreds of male birds, 

 which seemed to be on their way still further north — a very remarkable fact. This species seems 

 to be decreasing in numbers, owing to the persecution it undergoes. Messrs. Evans and Sturge, 



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