174 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



The adult male has " the frontal angles of the bill very narrow and, though 

 fleshy, little elevated; the head black above, with a medial white band; the hind 

 part of the cheeks and nape pale green; the throat, hind neck, back scapulars, 

 smaller wing-coverts, and inner secondary quills, white ; the breast, sides, abdomen, 

 and rump, black; the fore-neck cream-coloured; tail of sixteen feathers." — 

 fMacgillivrayJ . In fact the colours in the full plumaged male Eider seem reversed 

 when compared with other Ducks — white above, black below. The weight is five 

 to six lbs. Males are four years in obtaining the full plumage. 



The female is nearly equal in bulk to the male; the plumage is plain and 

 inconspicuous, of various shades of brown, and shewing much variation from 

 brownish-black to yellowish-red. 



Family— ANA TID.^. 



King-Eider. 



Somateria spedabilis, LlN^N. 



THIS exceedingly beautiful Duck is a well-known circumpolar species, which 

 in high northern latitudes, to some extent, replaces the last. It has occurred 

 on several occasions on the coast of the British Islands, and for a considerable 

 period of time, till the oflfers of head-money by greedy collectors of home examples 

 has sealed its doom, otherwise I might have been able to record its nesting in 

 some part or other of our northern lands. 



In 1884, Mr. C. Dixon saw two pair, males and females, in company with 

 the common species, swimming daily together off St. Kilda, and had not the 

 slightest doubt they were nesting on the precipitous Island of Doon. The fact, 

 however, of their appearance in pairs, and the date being the second week in June, 

 makes this statement very inconclusive. A pair were observed off the Fame 

 Islands, in May, 1880, and, I was told, seen occasionally in that locality for at 



