Eider-Duck 
15 
and further to sea with each journey until they saw the big flocks already resting, and 
these they would join. At the period of high-water this big flock would sometimes 
number a hundred to two hundred birds, and they would all keep paddling to maintain 
their position, until half-tide warned them that the feeding hour was near. Then they 
could be seen breaking away from the main flock in small parties and heading south 
to Hoy, east to Graemsay and the Churchyard rocks, and north along the coast. Day 
after day the same manoeuvres were repeated, and it was rare to see even a single bird 
come within gun-range of the shore, though I have more than once killed them in a 
gale of wind. 
All Eider resorts are not so wild as the West Orkneys, for in Shetland they frequent 
deep voes and narrow channels on the east side of the islands, where big waves are never 
encountered, but only heavy tide-rips, on whose edge they love to sleep and dream away 
the lazy hours of high-tide. On the east coast of Scotland, too, and the Western 
Islands, their resting places, though often far off-shore, are not as a rule very exposed. 
Yet it does not seem that these are chosen for shelter, but merely because they are near the 
favourite skerries where they feed and the low-lying coastlands where they breed in 
summer. Their usual resorts are low-lying islands, rising above the surface of the sea, 
in the vicinity of some low-lying coasts off whose shore lie ridges of rocks surrounded 
by mussel-banks. Many of the east Scotch resorts are, however, long shallows off a sand- 
dune coast where there are no rocks, and where the feeding grounds are sandy at the 
bottom and doubtless full of crabs and Conchylia. I have seen them diving for hours 
for these off the end of Buddon Ness, nearly a quarter of a mile from shore ; and the 
birds that frequent this neighbourhood are there throughout the winter, and do not 
seem to join or overlap the Carnoustie-Arbroath birds or those of Tents Muir. 
Especially in spring and autumn, Eiders like to go ashore and rest and preen in 
the sun close to the water's edge, and here they will sleep on some bunch of seaweed, 
the colour of the male being very conspicuous at a great distance. As a rule, however, 
they are more watchful when on shore than on the sea, and generally keep a sentinel on 
the look-out. In Norway, where they are seldom molested, it is common to see Eiders 
resting on the rocks at all hours, but in our islands they are more cautious, and one 
seldom sees them taking a siesta except on small islands where disturbance is unlikely, 
and then so close to the water that one quick movement will allow them to get afloat 
at once. I have, however, often seen them asleep on the west coast of the Hebrides, where 
all birds are much tamer than they are in Scotland or the northern isles. In summer 
they spend much of their time ashore even in our islands, and especially so at night. 
L. Lloyd, in his interesting Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Norway, says : 
"During the daytime the Eider, unless disturbed, spends fully as much of its time on land, or 
rather on the cold naked rocks so common in the ' Skargard,' as in the water, and, as it would appear, 
in a state of repose. What may be the case in the winter, I know not : but in the summer it would 
seem always to pass the night on terra firma ; for when boating by moonlight we frequently started 
these birds from their roosting places in the rocks, but never saw them on the water. If this be really 
the case, it would look as if the Eider, unlike most other birds of the Duck tribe, which obtain the 
greater part of their sustenance during the hours of darkness, feeds only in the daytime." 
The male Eider is easily distinguished by its brilliant black-and-white plumage, 
