448 



NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



crowded with blackish spots. The upper plumage mostly pitch-black, with yellowish-brown 

 edgings. Breast and flanks yellowish-brown, spotted and barred with black. Belly the same 

 colours intimately mixed. Bill as in the female. 



Length, total 

 „ of tail 

 „ of wing 

 ,, of bill to front 



Inch. Lin. 



24 

 4 



11 

 1 



Dimensions 

 Of the male. 



Length of bill to rictus 

 ,, of tarsus . . 



,, of middle toe . 

 ,, of middle nail 



Inch. Lin. 



. 2 7 Length of hind toe 



1 10| „ of its nail . 



. 2 5 Height of frontal plates 



, 5 Breadth of ditto 



Inch. 



Lin. 







7* 







2| 



. 1 



6 



1 







— R 





[206.] 2. Somateria mollissima. (Leach.) The Eider. 



Sub-family, Fuligulinae, Swains. Genus, Somateria, Leach. 



Great black and white duck. Edwards, pi. 98. 



Eider duck. Penn., Arct. Zool, ii., p. 553, No. 480. Wils., viii., p. 122, pi. 71, f. 2 and 3. 



Canard eider {Anas mollissima). Temm., ii., p. 848. 



Anas mollissima. Sab., Greenl. Birds, p. 554, No. 27- Richards., App. Parry's Second 



Voy., p. 370, No. 31*. 

 Fuligula (Somateria) mollissima. Bonap. Syn.,'No. 331. 

 Mittek. Esquimaux. Dunter duck. Hudson's Bay Residents. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a male, killed June 14, 1822, at Winter Island, lat. 66° 1 1 i' N. 



Colour. — Circumference of the frontal plates, forehead, crown, and under eyelid, deep 

 scotch-blue ; hind head, nape, and temples, siskin-green. Stripe on the top of the head, 

 cheeks, chin, neck, breast, back, scapulars, lesser coverts, curved tertiaries, sides of the rump, 

 and under wing coverts, white ; the tertiaries tinged with greenish-yellow, and the breast 

 with buff. Greater coverts, quills, rump, tail and its coverts, and the under plumage, pitch- 

 black ; the ends of the quills and tail fading to brown. Bill oil-green. Legs greenish- 

 yellow. 



Form typical. Bill prolonged on the lengthened depressed forehead into two narrow flat 

 plates that are separated by an angular projection of the frontal plumage. Nostrils not 

 pervious. Neck short and thick. Wings nearly three inches shorter than the tail. Hind toe 

 attenuated posteriorly into a broad lobe. 



The female is yellowish-brown, barred with black; the wing coverts black, edged with fer- 

 ruginous ; greater coverts and secondaries narrowly tipped with white ; head and upper part 

 of the neck marked with dusky stripes. Under plumage clove brown, with obscure darker 

 blotches. The young male resembles the female, and is said not to attain its full plumage 

 till the fourth year. 



* The eggs of the Eider measure three inches in length, and two in breadth. They vary much in the obtuseness of 

 their ends. — R. 



