* 
King-Eider 43 
" The natives, although as a rule they are far from good shots, are provided with poor guns, and 
appear particularly averse to putting in enough powder and shot to kill a strong Eider-Duck, nevertheless 
succeed in capturing a good many with guns and slings. They reap a plentiful harvest of them in the 
spring, when they are all at home, and the crews of the whaling umiaks out at the open water spend their 
leisure time while they are waiting for whales in shooting ducks, which form an important article of food. 
They of course always boil their ducks, as they do all the rest of their food, and usually skin instead of 
plucking them. They are very fond of the fat which adheres to the skin, scraping it off with their knives 
industriously till not a particle remains, licking their knives with great relish. The intestines, boiled by 
themselves, are also considered a great delicacy. 
"The males that appear at Pergniak at the beginning of the autumn migrations are at first in full 
breeding dress, perhaps a little faded, especially about the bill. As the season advances they show more 
and more extensive patches of brown feathers, until at the end of the migrations they cannot be dis- 
tinguished from the females except by the white wing and back patches." 
The author then proceeds to give an account of males in eclipse plumage, which I have 
already described. 
The nesting materials used by the female King-Eider are the same as the Common 
Eider, but the down which she plucks from her breast is of a much darker colour, having 
at a short distance a sooty-black appearance. Full clutches of eggs were taken by 
Macllhenny in Alaska on June 15, 19, 22, 29, &c. In Spitsbergen Koenig took two incom- 
plete sets of 3 on July i, whilst Kolthoff took a nest on June 24. Feilden took eggs in July, 
and fresh eggs from July 9 to July 15. In Greenland Kolthoff found eggs and saw many 
young in down on August i. It is evident that the duck alone makes the nest, as females 
shot by H. C. Hart and A. L. Manniche had the breast bare. Direct observations of the 
breeding habits seem to be wanting, yet it is known that the males leave the ducks near 
the hatching time, and that all the subsequent habits of the species, until the winter flocks 
are formed, are similar to the Common Eider. 
There is a curious saga, common amongst the peasants of Northern Norway and 
Iceland, to the effect that this duck originated out of small pieces of rotten wood, and for 
this reason it is named the Stick " Duck. Also it is maintained by the Icelanders that 
the male Eider-Duck in advanced age gets a red crown on the top of the head, and is 
then known as Hedar Kongr (Eider-King). These are the males of the King-Eider. The 
bird and mammal enemies of this species are the same as prey on the Eider. In the 
entrails have been found the parasite Taenia microsoma. 
Immense numbers of King-Eiders are' killed by the Esquimaux of West Greenland 
and Alaska, who shoot them with bows and arrows and shot guns, whilst the American 
and Dundee whalers also take their toll before the ice allows them to go in pursuit of the 
cetaceans. The methods of the Greenlanders, who also use javelins, are as follows : 
" Several people surround a flock of these duck swimming on the sea, make a cordon roimd them 
with their light boats, and approach them as carefully as possible, then suddenly raise a piercinm shriek, 
whereupon the duck are so terrified that they forget to fly away, and immediately dive under, upon which 
the boatmen quickly close round in their boats, and the birds upon reappearing are again terrified at the 
unexpected proximity of human beings, and dive again repeatedly until they are worn out and are reached 
with the above weapons or with an oar, and the spot where a duck is abjtf^.to reappear is marked, by the 
airbubbles which appear shortly before. Fabricius, who has described J^se methods of pursu^ {Fatma 
Groenlandtca, p. 63), has forgotten perhaps the most important thpg, namely, that they ci^rl only be 
pursued with success when these birds cannot fly, and are undergoing the moulting and hav^/lost their 
flight feathers ; the same thing applying, too, to the Eider-Duck and others. 1/ 
