300 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
readily recognized by having no white on the wings, and 
having the nail occupy the whole tip of the short bill. 
The female is grayish in hue. An adult varies in length 
from fourteen to nineteen or more inches. The male is 
known in some places as ‘‘ old Injun,” and the female as 
“old squaw.” Both are clamorous callers, and exceed- 
ingly noisy, though their tones are rather melodious. 
Although shot in large numbers from boats, their flesh 
is almost uneatable, owing to its dry and fishy flavor. 
Having aarapid and irregular mode of flight, they are 
rather difficult to hit, especially in windy weather. The 
Indians eat them greedily when they have an opportu- 
nity, so that they are not wholly useless to man. 
Steller’s eider duck (Somateria stellerit), which is con- 
fined to the Northwest coast, has a black collar, a black 
chin-patch and eye-ring, and a general reddish-brown hue, 
which is darkest below. It has a length of about eighteen 
inches, and a proportionate weight. It is little sought 
for even by the littoral Indians of British Columbia, 
owing to the character of its flesh. 
The spectacled eider (8. fischerit) is blackish; the throat, 
neck, scapulars and wing-coverts being white. This is a 
common resident of the waters of the Northern Pacific 
Ocean, being, according to the naval authorities, abund- 
ant off the coast of British America and Alaska. 
The eider, or sea duck (S. mollissima), is common on 
the Atlantic Coast from Labrador to New England. 
A variety known as var. V-nigra, from having a V- 
shaped black patch on the chin, is found on the shores of 
the Pacific. The male eider is of a whitish hue in the 
spring, except the breast, the lower back, the tail, and a 
patch on the crown of the head, which are black. The 
female is a reddish-brown, and the male is of the same 
color at certain seasons, so that they can only be dis- 
tinguished apart by their size, the latter being about two 
feet in length. 
