WILD ANIMALS YIELDING LEATHER, HORN, ETC. 309 



ot the valuable down developed on the nest as a climatal adap- 

 tation. The Common Eider {Somateria mollisshna), which has 

 a wide range, and is included in the British avifauna, is carefully 

 preserved in Iceland and Norway. In Labrador and Greenland 

 it is replaced by an allied species (5. Dresseri). 



The Scandinavian eider-industry is based on the fact that 

 the female bird lines and covers her nest with down plucked 

 from her own breast (see p. 60). The breeding-places are on low 

 ground near the coast, or upon rocky islets, and each " eder- 

 fold" {i.e. eider-fold) is worked for profit by a special proprietor. 

 Both eggs and down are collected at regular intervals during the 

 nesting-season, but the amount obtainable from a particular nest 



4. — Eider-Drake {Somateria mollissijita) 



is, of course, limited, and care is taken to allow the despoiled 

 mother-birds to hatch out some at least of the final batch of eggs. 

 The last lot of down is collected when the nests have been 

 deserted for the season. About three-quarters of the Danish 

 supply is derived from Greenland. Newton (in A Dictionary 

 of Birds) thus disposes of two popular errors regarding these 

 birds: — "The story of the drakes furnishing down after the 

 duck's supply is exhausted is a fiction. He never goes near the 

 nest. . . . Equally fictitious is the often-repeated statement that 

 eider-down is white. Mouse-colour would perhaps best describe 

 its hue." 



WILD ANIMALS YIELDING LEATHER, HORN, FAT, ETC. 



It has been considered desirable in this book to deal with 

 domesticated animals in a special section, but the plan (like 

 any other) has certain disadvantages, especially when treating of 



Vol, IV. 115 



