446 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



structure, composed of dry grass and bits of other marine herbage, 

 sometimes twigs of heather, and is well and warmly lined with 

 down plucked from the body of the female, gradually accumulated 

 as the eggs are laid. The eggs are six or seven in number, some- 

 times eight, and vary in colour from cream gray to grayish green, 

 smooth and wax-like in texture, but with little gloss. They 

 measure on an average 3'i inches in length by 2'o inches in breadth. 

 Down tufts moderate, and varying from brownish gray to grayish 

 brown with obscure pale centres. This down is the highly-prized 

 article of commerce, used for stuffing quilts and other purposes, 

 and valued, when cleaned, at about twenty shillings per pound. 

 Each Duck produces about four ounces of down in the season. 

 In Greenland, Iceland, and in some parts of Norway the birds 

 are regularly farmed for this product. (Further particulars of this 

 industry may be obtained in my work entitled. Stray Peaihers 

 from many Birds, p. 21.) Incubation, performed entirely by the 

 female, lasts twenty-eight days. When the young are hatched 

 the mother soon conveys her brood to the sea, carrying them in 

 many cases one by one in her bill. Here the old bird will often 

 take one or more of her ducklings on her back to rest and sleep, 

 sinking her body low in the water to allow the little creature more 

 easily to mount. Only one brood is reared in the year. The 

 male does not desert the female after the eggs are laid. He never 

 comes near the nest, but is usually not far away on the sea close 

 by, and when his mate leaves the eggs to feed he invariably joins 

 her. I should remark that the Eider is gregarious during this 

 period, and numbers of nests may be seen almost side by side, 

 in some cases two females sharing the same nest. As soon as the 

 young are reared the birds quit the land, and undergo their annual 

 change of plumage for the most part out at sea. 



Diagnostic Characters.— (Nuptial plumage), Somatma, 

 with the upper back, mantle, and falcated scapulars white (adult 

 male); with the feathers on the forehead only extending about half 

 as far as those on the side of the upper mandible (adult female). 

 Length, 25 inches. 



