CHAPTER XIV 



A PLEA FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE 

 EIDER ^ 



THE treatment of that magnificent duck 

 the eider {Somateria dresseri) along our At- 

 lantic coast is rapidly leading to its extermi- 

 nation. This duck, which is locally known as 

 sea duck, laying duck, shoreyer, Eskimo duck, 

 moynak, and metic, is everywhere diminish- 

 ing in numbers. In Maine they were at one 

 time reduced to a few pairs, but, by enforce- 

 ment of laws and by reservations watched over 

 by wardens, they are beginning to increase. 

 I believe there are only two or three cases of 

 their breeding at the present time on the Nova 

 Scotia coast. On the Newfoundland coast 

 their numbers are pitifully few where once 

 they abounded. The coast of Labrador for- 

 merly swarmed with these birds, and the is- 

 lands were thickly covered with their nests. 

 All the ornithologists from the time of Audu- 



1 Read at the meeting of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, November li, 1913, and reprinted by permission from 

 The Auk (1914), vol. xxxi, p. 14. 

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