I06 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



shores of Franklin Bay ; it is also very abundant on the coast 

 and islands of Liverpool Bay. {Macfarlane) This species is 

 quite common at Point Barrow during the migrations, but does 

 not breed there, going farther to the eastward. {Murdoch.) 



Breeding Notes. — At St. Michael this species breeds in con- 

 siderable numbers, and there prefers the open tundra for a nesting 

 place. A nest was found with eleven eggs on the hillside about 

 half a mile back of " the redoubt." The nest which was made in 

 a mossy situation, consisted of a few blades of grass and was well 

 lined with sooty-coloured down from the abdomen of the bird 

 itself. Along the Aleutian Islands this bird prefers the steep slopes 

 heavily clothed with rank grasses, such as wild rye {Elymus), 

 which grows in huge tussocks, among which the nest is hidden. 

 A slight depression is scratched out ; the eggs are placed on the 

 bare ground, the down being used as a cover for the eggs 

 when the parent is absent from the nest, it is plucked from the 

 breast for that purpose only, and increases in amount as the 

 increased complement of eggs demands a greater amount of 

 covering. The eggs are never placed on the down. The 

 nest, when first scratched, is usually left to dry-out several days 

 before it is used, as the bare spots were seen sometimes a week 

 before an egg was deposited. With the first egg, only a little 

 down is found in the nest, and it will be replaced two or three 

 times if removed. When the nest is full of eggs, and they, with 

 all the down, are removed, the bird seeks some other locality for 

 again laying fewer eggs, generally not more than five for the 

 second nest. {Tur?ier.) 



This bird breeds in immense numbers on the coast and islands 

 of Liverpool Bay. The nest is usually a shallow cavity in the 

 ground, more or less plentifully lined with down. The eggs are 

 generally five, and but rarely six or seven, in number, of a pale 

 sea-green colour with a tinge of olive. We found some nests on 

 a sloping bank at a distance of three or four hundred feet from 

 the sea. Others were found on the mainland, but the bulk of those 

 secured by us were obtained from sandy islets in the bays. {Mac- 

 farlane.) 



162. King Eider. 



Somateria spectabilis (Linn.) Leach. 1819. 



Said not to breed further south than Lat. 67°, but in some 

 numbers at Lat. 73° ; also on the east coast of Greenland and on 



