FEMALE EIDER DUCK. 
153 
FEMALE EIDER DUCK — Plate LXXI. Fig. 3. 
Peak's Museum, No. 2707. 
SOMATERIA Leach. 
The difference of colour in these two birds is singularly 
great. The female is considerably less than the male, and the 
bill does not rise so high in the forehead ; the general colour 
is a dark reddish drab, mingled with lighter touches, and every 
where spotted with black ; wings, dusky, edged with reddish ; 
the greater coverts, and some of the secondaries, are tipt with 
white ; tail, brownish black, lighter than in the male ; the plu- 
mage in general is centred with bars of black, and broadly 
bordered with rufous drab ; checks and space over the eye, 
light drab ; belly, dusky, obscurely mottled with black ; legs 
and feet, as in the male. 
Van Troil, in his Letters on Iceland^ observes respecting this 
duck, that “ the young ones quit the nest soon after they are 
hatched, and follow the female, who leads them to the water, 
where, having taken them on her back, she swims with them 
a few yards, and then dives, and leaves them floating on the 
water ! In this situation they soon learn to take care of 
themselves, and are seldom afterwards seen on the land, but 
live among the rocks, and feed on insects and sea-weed.” 
Some attempts have been made to domesticate these birds, 
but hitherto without success. 
