KING EIDER. 
172 
been filled with the eider-down. The females would 
remain on the nests until knocked over with sticks. * 
"We are indebted for most of the specimens in the 
collections of this country to the Arctic voyages, a 
few being occasionally brought by the Greenland 
and other whaling vessels, but good skins are by 
no means easily procured. 
This Eider has the base of the bill much more 
elevated, or rather it laterally rises upwards in the 
form of two large oval protuberancos, the plumage 
of the forehead separating them ; these with the 
bill are described as “ vermilion red,” when the bird 
is newly killed ; the plumage between the tuber- 
cules with a band surrounding them, and the base 
of the maxilla with the form of a V on the throat, 
the acute end entering the fork of the mandible, 
and the eyelid, velvet-black ; the cheeks and side of 
the throat exterior to the V pistachio-green, the 
feathers having a structure similar to those of the 
Eider; the crown, hind-head, and nape, bluish- 
green ; neck, mantle, and lesser wing covers, white ; 
breast rich cream-yellow ; the lower back, rump, 
tail, scapulars, and quills, brownish black ; greater 
covers and secondaries black ; tertials brownish 
black, paler along the shafts and very much curved ; 
belly, vent, and under tail-covers, black ; on each 
side of the rump a large and conspicuous triangular 
patch of yellowish white. In the female, the ge- 
neral appearance somewhat resembles that of the 
common Eider, the light parts are more rufous in 
* Sabine. 
