EIDER DUCK. 
173 
their nest, laying- a rather coarse foundation of drift g-rass, dry tangle, 
and sea-weed, which is collected in some quantity. Upon this rough 
mattress, the female Eider spreads a bed of the finest down plucked 
from her own breast, and by no means sparingly; but, as Brunnich in- 
forms us, heaping it up, so as to form a thick puffed roll quite round 
the nest. When she is necessitated to go in quest of food after begin- 
ning to sit, she carefully turns this roll of down over the eggs to keep 
them warm till her return. Martens says she mixes the down with 
moss ; ‘ but as this is not recorded by any other observer, I think it 
is not a little doubtful, particularly as in the localities chosen for nest- 
ling, she would find it no easy matter to procure moss. It is worthy 
of remark, that though the Eider Duck lays only five or six eggs, it is 
not uncommon to find more than even ten and upwards in the same 
nest, occupied by two females, which live together in perfect concord.” ^ 
The quantity of down in each nest is said, by Von Troil, to be about 
half a pound, which by cleaning is reduced to a half ; by Pennant, who 
examined the Eiders’ nests in the Earn islands, off Northumberland, it 
is only estimated when cleaned at three quarters of an ounce, and this 
was so elastic as to fill the crown of the largest hat. The difference 
of quantity in these two accounts, theoretically ascribed by the trans- 
lator of Buffon, to difference of climate, may have arisen from the one 
being the first, and the other the second or third nest of the mother 
duck ; for if the first nest be plundered of its down, though she imme- 
diately builds a second, she cannot furnish it with the same quantity as 
before ; and if forced to build a third time, having then stript her 
breast of all she could spare, the male is said to furnish what is want- 
ing, which is known as being considerably whiter than the female’s. 
When the nest is not robbed, it is said that he furnishes none.^ 
The extraordinary elasticity of the down appears from what I have 
already said of three quarters of an ounce filling a large hat ; and 
Pontoppidan says, that two or three pounds of it, though pressed into 
a ball, which may be held in the hand, upon being allowed to expand, 
will fill the foot-covering of a large bed. It is worthy of notice, how- 
ever, that it is only the down taken from the nests which has this 
great elasticity, for what is taken from the dead birds is much inferior, 
being, as Pontoppidan says, ‘‘ fat, subject to rot, and far from as light 
as what the female plucks to form a bed for its young.” ^ It is on this 
‘ Recueil des Voyages du Nord, ii. 93. 
^ Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, 8vo. ed. p. 36. ^ Brunnich. 
‘‘Pontoppidan, Nat. Hist, of Norway. 
