Family ANATID^. Genus Somateria. 



Subfamily Fuligvlinm, 



KING EIDER. 



SOMATERIA SPECTABILIS— (Z?«;^«w). 



Geographical Distribution.— ^;-2'/m/^ .- Accidental straggler 

 to the British Islands, and so frequently observed during summer 

 as to suggest its possibly breeding within our limits. Has been 

 seen and obtained in various localities from Plymouth to the 

 Orkneys and Shetlands. Rarer in Ireland, where only four 

 instances of its occurrence are on record. Has been observed at the 

 Fame Islands in summer ; and I met with two pairs during June 

 at St. Kilda. Foreign : Circumpolar, extreme northern Palae- 

 arctic and Nearctic regions ; more southerly in winter. Breeds 

 on the islands off the coast of Northern Siberia, Nova Zembla, 

 Franz Josef Land, probably Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the 

 islands and coasts of Arctic America, perhaps as far north as land 

 extends. More or less accidental visitor in winter to the coasts 

 of Norway, the Baltic, Denmark, Holland, and France, to the 

 Faroes, Iceland, Labrador, New Jersey, the Great Lakes, and 

 California. 



Allied Forms. — None more closely allied than the Eider 

 Duck and its representative forms, treated of in the preceding 

 chapter. 



Time during which the King Eider may be taken.— 

 August I St to March ist. 



Habits. — The King Eider, although it resembles the Common 

 Eider very closely in its general habits, is not quite such an 

 exclusively marine species, and is occasionally found on fresh 

 water, yet only, so far as I can determine, such vast expanses as 

 the Great Lakes in North America. It is almost if not quite as 



