THE EIDER DUCK. 435 



resembling the moaning of the seals in the harbors. The prin- 

 cipal food of the Eider is shell-fish, small gasteropods and 

 mussels, for which it will dive 8 or 10 fathoms, or even 

 more, and the shells of which it can break easily. Though 

 its flesh is not the most savory, it can sometimes be eaten 

 with relish. Audubon cites a case of its successful domes- 

 tication. Its colors, its great size^some 25 inches in length 

 and 40.50 in extent, and its broad-based tapering bill, 

 feathered well down along the ridge — fully differentiate it 



In Norway and Greenland, for the Eider is also a denizen 

 of the Old World, this species is half domesticated. The 

 natives, pursuing a humane and most commendable policy, 

 do not allow it to be molested. Hence it breeds in great 

 numbers, even about their premises, under up-turned 

 boats, slabs, and about out-houses, the female allowing her- 

 self to be lifted from the nest while the eggs are handled. 

 After the young have left the nest, the down is gathered as 

 an article of commerce; and thus it is secured in the 

 greatest quantity. Islands appropriated as breeding-places 

 thus become good, sometimes notable, sources of income to 

 the owners. 



The King Duck i^Soinateria spectabilis), a near relative of 

 the former, but of considerably smaller size, is more arctic 

 in its habitat. Very common about the Magdalen Islands 

 in winter, and so tame that it can be killed with a stick, 

 it seldom migrates as far south as New England, Probably 

 its tameness in winter is due to its breeding so far north as 

 to be disturbed but little by man. 



Some 22.50 long and 41.00 in extent, the male is brownish- 

 black, having the chin, neck, upper part of the back, stripe 

 lengthwise on the wing, and a spot on each side of the base 

 of the tail, white; an elegant gray-drab hood over the 

 crown; cheeks delicate ice-green; border around the bare 



