40 British Diving Ducks 
" I did not succeed in finding nests with eggs, but all the old nests I found at Stormkap proved 
that this bird nests singly. The nests were placed on the lower slopes with luxuriant vegetation, or 
on small hills in the lowland with large stones surrounded by grass. 
"None of the observed nests were far from the bay (as a maximum, i kilometer). I think that the 
young ones soon after their emergence were directed to this. 
" The down from the nests was very dark coloured, nearly black, and by this they may be 
distinguished from that of the Common Eider. 
" I secured some breeding females whose breasts and bellies were nearly naked. 
" The females would in the breeding season sometimes leave the nest for a short while and fly 
to the nearest pond for the purpose of bathing and seeking food. Like many other birds the King- 
Eider is irritable and quarrelsome at this period. One evening I observed a female, which had just 
left her nest. She flew quickly straight towards me, and so low that she seemed to touch the earth 
with the tips of her wings. I was standing on the beach of a pond with shallow water. Uttering 
an angry grunting she circled around, and quite near to me, and then flew to the pond. Having 
quenched her thirst, and by a pair of quick bounds under the surface put her feathers in order, she swam 
straight towards me, all the while uttering a peculiar growling and hissing ; the feathers on her head 
were erected, and she seemed to be very much displeased at my presence ; now and then she cackled in 
the shallow water like a domestic duck, again to show her displeasure. 
" I secured the King-Eider in order to assure myself that she was a breeding bird, and found 
her to be very thin and nearly naked on her belly. In the season in which the King-Eider lives in fresh 
water its food consists principally of plants. In the stomachs which I examined I found, however, many 
remnants of insects, especially larvae of gnats. In the stomachs of downy young ones I found inde- 
terminable remnants of crustaceans, plants, and small stones. 
" I found no difference worth mentioning in the exterior of the males except in the V-formed mark 
on the throat, which varied a good deal in extent and intensity. 
" The females, on the contrary, vary a good deal. Some birds — very old ones, I think — were very 
pale, the others were rather dark, 
" A female killed (pale in colour) had a well-developed prominence on the forehead ; in other 
females I found a fainter indication of such." 
In Standing, walking, and swimming, they seem to resemble the Eider, but the males 
can easily be identified at a considerable distance by the black scapulars and the curious 
shape of the head. 
They obtain their food in winter and spring by diving to the bottom of the sea at 
considerable depths, and, like the Eiders, feed chiefly on conchylia, mussels, univalves, and 
crabs. They swallow very large mussels, the shells being broken up in the stomach. 
They are also said to eat fish, fish-spawn, and other sea creatures, but it is doubtful 
if they touch any vegetation except in summer. Thompson, who examined the stomach 
of a female shot in Belfast Bay, says it "was filled with the remains of Crustacea and mol- 
lusca, viz., an Inachus of middle size, the \2iX<gQ,s'i Porhmus arcuahts that I had seen, ... a 
Nucttla margaritacea, and a small buckie whelk {Buccimtm undatmn)." Mr. Dresser 
{B. of Europe, p. 648) says: "Mr. Collett informs me that he dissected a couple of adult 
males shot at Tromso in January 1877, and found their stomachs full of mollusca, chiefly 
of Pecten islandicus, Cyprina islandica, and Mytilus modiola ; some of these were broken ; 
but in one of the birds he found five uninjured specimens of P. islandicus, the shells of 
which measured more than an inch in diameter ; and in the ventriculus there were several 
entire examples of the same species." 
According to Herluf Winge {Grdnlands Ftigle, p. no), the following were found in 
examples from Greenland : Trophon craticulatus, Turritella polaris, Pecten islmidicus, 
