2-4 British Diving Ducks 
Very often the female Eiders adopt a sort of kindergarten system of juvenile education 
such as I have also noticed occasionally amongst Common Wild Ducks and Sheld-Ducks. 
One day in early July I saw three female Eiders with young, the only ones that nested that 
year on the Cleston shore, Pomona, and on passing the same place next day I saw only one 
female with twelve young ones following her. There was no sign of the other two mothers. 
Three or four days afterwards I passed the same place, and saw the three females again, 
each with their four young ones. Now this seems to point to an interesting fact in 
Eider domestic health or economy. What were the two absent mothers doing by going 
away by themselves ? I can only surmise that they had departed for a short time to some 
better feeding ground where they could find an abundance of food, and so recuperate 
quickly after the long and trying privations incidental to incubation. 
I noticed exactly the same thing in August 1899 on the west coast of N. Uist, where 
there were three female Sheld-Ducks, each with about ten young ones. On certain days I 
could see each mother with her own brood, and then for a day or two the whole thirty young 
ones would be with one old female, and again after the lapse of another day or two the 
separate families would be reunited. I think the fact is interesting, and one that I have not 
seen touched upon by naturalists. 
At first the female Eider stays with her young in quiet nooks near the shore, and here 
she teaches them to search for spawn, and small crabs, and small Conchylia, as the tide 
recedes. She is an excellent mother, and very anxious and brave in the defence of her 
young. Gradually she takes them further and further to sea, often on her back, and I 
have seen the mother dive when they are still in this position, as if to teach them 
to follow her in any sudden movement. Not that the young require much teaching, for 
at the end of the first week they dive with facility, although they cannot reach any great 
depth. By the time the scapulars begin to show, they are expert divers, and will go far 
to sea and will face very rough water. So their education progresses, the parent bird 
staying with her young until October, when they are quite capable of looking after them- 
selves in the big flocks of immatures that assemble together. 
In places where the eggs are regularly plundered, the female Eider will lay again 
usually only three eggs, and if these are taken she will generally lay only one more, and 
often of a small size. In Denmark the young are capable of flight by the middle of 
July ; but in our islands it is generally about the middle of August before they are seen on 
the wing, whilst backward birds of a second hatching may not fly till September. Eiders 
are easily scared from their breeding grounds by shooting, and will soon desert a place if 
subjected to such treatment. In the north of Iceland, where I was only shooting a few 
specimens of other ducks in eclipse, the inhabitants always begged me not to fire my gun 
within a mile of any Eider colony, as they feared it would alarm the birds, so I did not 
do so. 
About the beginning of October the winter flocks begin to come together, and the old 
males may be seen with the females again ; but in our islands it is unusual to find adults 
and young birds of the year mixing to any extent. In the Baltic and on the Norwegian and 
Danish coasts immense numbers, often consisting of both adults and immatures, come 
together and frequent the Cattegat and open stretches of water ; but as the winter comes on 
these again split up and move west and south in smaller parties, according to the variations 
