464 STELLER’S EIDER. 
to be on the Varanger Fjord, just east of the North Cape; it is, 
moreover, reported as nesting on the coast of Russian Finmark, and 
eggs and down are asserted to have been taken at Petschinka in 1870. 
There is, however, no record of it on Novaya Zemlya, nor along 
the Arctic coast of Siberia until the Taimyr Peninsula is reached, 
where Middendorff found the bird common and breeding on the 
‘tundras.’ Dr. A. Bunge saw flocks in June at Great Liakoff Island, 
lat. 73° N., to the east of the Lena delta, and had two eggs brought to 
him on July 4th; and the ‘ Vega’ expedition procured specimens in 
July close to Bering Strait, north of which this species is common ; 
while it can be traced down the coast of Kamchatka—where the 
bird was first obtained by Steller—to the Kuril Islands in winter. 
In the Aleutian Islands and the north of Alaska it is very abundant, 
but eastward it is only sparsely distributed along the American shores 
of the Arctic Sea to Davis Strait; while it is very rare in West 
Greenland, and unknown on the east side. 
Middendorff describes the nest as cup-shaped and lined with 
down, placed in the moss on the flat ‘tundras’; the eggs, 7-9 in 
number, are of a pale greenish-grey colour: measurements 2‘2 by 
16 in. ‘The food consists of marine insects and molluscs. As far 
as is known, the bird chiefly frequents deep clear sea-water ; and in 
winter it is found in small flocks, which are sometimes joined by a 
solitary King-Eider, the only Duck with which this species has been 
seen to associate. 
The adult male has the head and upper neck chiefly satin-white ; 
lores and crescentic tuft across the occiput dull green, the latter 
tipped with black ; chin black ; round the neck a collar of bluish- 
black, ending in a broad stripe which passes down the middle of 
the back to the upper tail-coverts ; quills and tail-feathers brown ; 
secondaries partly white, with a rich dark blue patch ; the decurved 
inner secondaries and long falcated scapulars white on the inner 
and rich blue on the outer webs ; below the point of the wing some 
white feathers tipped with black; middle of breast and belly rich 
chestnut-brown, passing into warm buff on the front, sides and 
flanks; vent and under tail-coverts dark brown; Dill, legs and 
feet dark grey. Length 18 in.; wing 8-5 in. The female is dark 
brown, mottled with rufous, especially about the neck and breast ; 
the greater coverts and the secondaries have white tips, forming 
two bars, which enclose between them a bluish-black wing-patch. 
The plumage of the immature drake is described on p. 463. 
