336 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 



allowed to rear a few young so that their numbers are not diminished. 

 If the people of Labrador could be made to understand this, a new 

 industry would arise and the Eider instead of being a vanishing race, 

 would again populate the numerous islands along the southern 

 coasts of the peninsula. At present the people are actively engaged 

 in killing "the goose that lays the golden egg." 



[Somateria v-nigra Gray. Pacific Eider. — Stearns referred to this 

 species as abundant in large flocks. It is of course conceivable that a few 

 western birds may have strayed to the eastern coast and that Stearns shot 

 one or two out of a flock of Common Eiders. The following note on the sub- 

 ject by Leonhard Stejneger ('85) is interesting: " Mr. W. A. Stearns, in a paper 

 entitled ' Notes on the Natural History of Labrador,' published in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the U. S. National Museum,' Vol. VI, 1883, says (p. 121) that 

 the Somateria v-nigra, the Pacific Eider, is 'abundant in large flocks in 

 spring,' and that he himself 'obtained specimens that had the decided 'V- 

 shaped black mark' on the chin.' The statement has been doubted, and 

 critics have considered it a mild expression when saying that it ' seems to 

 require confirmation.' It is not my intention to defend Mr. Stearns' identifi- 

 cation, but having found a notice which seems to point in the same direction, 

 I think it safer to postpone a final decision in the matter. The notice to which 

 I allude is found in Degland and Gerbe's ' Ornithologie Europeenne (Paris, 

 1867), II, p. 557, where, under the head of Somateria mollissima, Mr. Gerbe 

 writes: 'Three or four specimens received from Newfoundland had under the 

 throat two black lines similar to those of Somateria spectabilis, but of a color less 

 deep. May they not be mules between the latter and the female Eider? Mr. 

 de Selys-Longchamps, in his second note on the hybrids of the Anatidae, in 

 quoting this example, remarks that Prince Ch. Bonaparte and Mr. W. Jardine 

 consider these specimens as a distinct species, which they name Somateria 

 v-nigrum, but that there is occasion to wait for new observations before decid- 

 ing.'"] 



Somateria spectabilis (Linn.). 

 King Eider; "King Duck"; "King-bird"; "Passing Duck." 



Abundant transient visitor; not uncommon summer resident in 

 the north. 



The King Eider breeds from Nachvak north. The greater portion 

 breed on the west coast of Greenland. Stearns refers to a breeding 

 record of this species on an island opposite Mingan, an exceptional 

 and rather doubtful southern instance. Macoun records the taking 

 of a set of three eggs of this species at Nachvak by G. Ford in 1897. 

 Low mentions the shooting of one in the interior at Lake Mistassini. 



The King Eider is generally an earlier arrival in the spring than the 



