KING EIDER. 
171 
birds of a piebald appearance are to be seen, 
which are those that have not attained their com- 
plete dress. Three and four years is the time al- 
lotted by most of our British writers for this pur- 
pose, the fact being stated, without entering into 
the causes for a departure from the more general 
rules. 
Tiie King Eider, Somateria spectabilis. — 
Anas spectabilis , Linn. — S. spectabilis , Flem., Selby, 
Jen., &c. — The King Duck, or King Eider of British 
authors. — The claim which this species has to be 
considered a British species is very scanty. Colonel 
Montagu states that Mr. Bullock informed him he 
had found it breeding in Orkney, but we have not 
since traced its occurrence on any of the Scottish 
coasts. A specimen is mentioned by Mr. Jenyns as 
killed on the Suffolk coast, and one from the Irish 
shores is in the collection of Mr. Ball. On the Con- 
tinent its distribution is equally uncertain, but it in- 
creases in abundance northward, though apparently 
it never becomes so frequent there as the last. It 
is near to the Arctic circle that the stronghold of 
this species prevails, breeding on the sea-shore, but 
sometimes in the neighbourhood of fresh-water 
ponds. Captain Beechy (exp. of the Dorothea and 
Trent, 1818) mentions the great abundance of the 
King Eider on some rocky islands on the coast off 
Spitzbergen. The sailors could scarcely walk with- 
out treading on their nests, and sacks might have 
