The King Eider 



we possess. In "Game Birds of California" Belding says: "I have 

 noticed many of these ducks on the principal streams of Calaveras and 

 Stanislaus Counties in summer in each of the past six or seven years, 

 and sent a juvenile to the Smithsonian which I shot here in 1879 or 1880. 

 I find young broods from about 4000 feet upward, the earliest apparently 

 hatched about the first of June or earlier, and have often surprised the 

 mother ducks with their broods when hidden in Saxifrage (S. peltata), 

 which grows profusely in parts of the mountain streams, sometimes ap- 

 proaching within a few feet of the brood ere I alarmed it, when all would 

 hurriedly swim from me, vigorously using both feet and wings to propel 

 themselves against or with the rapid currents, not hesitating to tumble 

 over a moderate-sized cataract when anxious to escape from danger, or 

 even, when following the stream, without such impetus." 



Mr. Belding further testifies that the Harlequin Ducks have been 

 greatly reduced in numbers within his knowledge. Fishermen, who 

 annually visit these streams in increasing numbers, have wantonly or 

 jealously slaughtered these wonderful birds until their doom seems well 

 nigh fixed. And yet, it is said, trout form no large proportion of the 

 Harlequin's food, if indeed they are indulged in at all. Really now, 

 wouldn't it be better if our piscivorous friends would consent to leave 

 their guns at home? The Harlequins wouldn't hurt them then! 



No. 366 



King Eider 



A. O. U. No. 162. Somateria spectabilis (Linnaeus). 



Description. — Adult male: Top of head and occiput broadly glaucous blue; 

 extreme frontal area and region about base of bill on sides black; a A-shaped black 

 mark on chin and a dab of black below and behind eye; sides of head broadly light 

 green (glass-green to absinthe-green) ; remainder of chin and neck all around white, 

 the color continued well down on back, but becoming clouded with gray; breast broadly 

 cream-buff; a patch on wing including lesser and middle coverts, and a patch on side 

 of rump, white; wing-linings whitish; remainder of plumage sooty black. Irides 

 yellow; bill orange-red; feet reddish with dusky webs. "In adult male, in breeding 

 season, the bill develops immense rounded or squarish lateral frontal processes, bulging 

 high out of line with rest of bill; these processes are soft, and, moreover, depend for 

 their prominence upon development of a mass of fatty substance upon which they 

 are supported; they shrink and become depressed in winter, when the general formation 

 of the parts is not very different from that of other Eiders" (Cones). Adult female: 

 Head pattern of male dimly outlined in brownish and dusky, the top of head clear 

 dark brown (mummy-brown to sepia), the sides of head cinnamon-buff, speckled with 

 dusky; remaining plumage sooty blackish above, lighter below, pale buffy finely barred 



1828 



