288 
POPULAU HISTOEY OF BIRDS. 
uberance of animal life at certain seasons in those remote 
and secure seas, and the rocky coasts and swampy plains 
near them, can form any idea of the multitude of aquatic 
birds at times to be found there. Captain F. W. Beechey"^, 
in 1818, found the King Eider Duck [Somateria sjoectahilis) 
so numerous on an islet close to Spitzbergen, that it was 
scarcely possible to walk without stepping on their nests. 
His party could have obtained several sacks of the down, 
had they been disposed to rob the nests. That able officer 
and accurate observer remarked a provision which the God 
of Nature has made against some of the casualties to which 
the young are exposed, in their embryo state, by the parents 
being kept away from their nests, in so cold a climate. He 
remarked that the parents, when immediate danger forced 
them to fly, hastily drew the down of the nest over the eggs 
and glued it with a yellow fluid, which they deposited as 
they arose. In this way not only was the cold air kept 
from the eggs, but the arctic foxes, always ready to take 
advantage of the parent ducks^ absence, will not touch the 
eggs tainted by this, to them, very offensive secretion. 
Captain Beechey observed that if very suddenly surprised 
* Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, in H.M.SS. Dorothea 
and Trent, in 1818, pp. 101-103. (London, 1843.) 
