1 8 British Diving Ducks 
to be drowned, as its half-opened bill showed ; but that it was actually holding on to the 
weeds, I could see no sign. I could narrate several instances of a similar character, which 
would only tend to show that whilst the birds both voluntarily get into positions under 
water from which they will not move until death overtakes them, and also into crannies 
and encircling weeds from which they cannot escape owing to lack of strength, yet there 
is not actual proof that they hold on to the weeds at the bottom of the sea, as Naumann 
suggests. 
"The strong hold they have on life," says Naumann, "is very remarkable, and if a shot is not 
mortal they always try to save themselves by diving, or if the feet are injured, they steer with their 
wings, and birds damaged in the wing can hardly be tired out by cleverly steered and swiftly rowed light 
boats, from which it was intended to kill them with a blow from the oar. The strength of their vitality, 
as with many other animals, is particularly striking at the mating period, when the stories about it must 
often appear incredible to people who have had no experience of it. Even ducks of this species which 
have been damaged in the brain live for a long while, or dive under in order to hold on to the growths 
at the bottom of the sea with the beak and there to die " — {Naturgeschichte der Vdgel Mitteleuropas, 
X. p. 231). 
The Eider subsists chiefly on Conchylia, and more on bivalvular than monovalvular 
species. They also eat many species of crabs, sea-urchins, and all sorts of molluscs. They 
will catch small fish, and it is said that they will eat the entrails of fish that have been 
gutted and thrown into the sea, bringing them to the surface and breaking up and swallow- 
ing them. Whilst breaking up large substances on the surface, they are often robbed by 
the larger gulls, and I have seen a Great Black-back seize what looked like a large sand-eel 
from the mouth of an Eider that had brought it to the surface for dinner. 
The common edible Mytilus seems to be preferred by the Eider to all other food, and 
their stomachs are often found filled with them. The birds are so greedy in devouring 
these that the gullet and neck is often seen distended with them, and it is a common sight 
to see an Eider swimming around gasping and trying to clear its gorged and inflated neck. 
I remember once, in Orkney, running down to a flock of feeding Eiders that for the moment 
had vanished beneath the waves. One rose near the boat with something like a thick 
stick projecting 5 or 6 inches from its mouth, which it was unable to close. I shot the bird, 
an old female, and found that the obstruction, when drawn out, was a razor-shell (Ensis 
siliqua), 10 inches long and 3 inches in circumference. How any bird, even with the 
digestion of a sea-duck, could assimilate so tough a morsel with a hard and thick shell 
seemed a marvel ; but it is doubtless the case that they are able to break them up, and 
eject the shells as pellets. Naumann says that " in addition to other species of the genus 
Mytilus, they sometimes subsist on some species of the genera Vemts, Cardimn, and others, 
as well as univalves, such as Nerita and others, even BMCcinum Mndatum. Moreover 
they also live on small common crabs and other Crustacea, on small sea-urchins and such 
like, much less often on fish" {Naturgeschichte der Vdgel Mitteleuropas, x. p. 231). 
In the gizzards of Eiders I have dissected I have often found quantities of both 
periwinkles and limpets. The shells of these are doubtless disintegrated, as Mr. H. W. 
Robinson suggests [British Birds, vol. ii., March 1909, p. 344), partly by the gastric juices 
and partly by the trituration of the gizzard. Mr. Robinson adds {jd): "The Eider is also 
fond of limpets. My boatman once reared an Eider drake, which was the terror of the 
limpet-pickers on the island, for it would steal the limpets as fast as they were detached 
