8 
Duchess of Bedford: Nine Days on Grimsey 
As the promontory at the extreme N.E. of Iceland 
promised to he interesting ground for the bird-watcher, I 
went next to an anchorage on the south side of it. Close 
to the anchorage, and separated from the sea by a bank of 
shingle not fifty yards wide, was a freshwater loch, on 
which I saw many Great Northern and Red-throated 
Divers, the former with young. The Eider-Duck was more 
abundant than in any other place that I have visited. I 
saw one female a long distance from any other birds with 
twenty-four young ones, but I think she must have been the 
superintendent of an Eider-Duck creche, as I cannot believe 
that they were all her own. 
I have often wondered why the minds of people accustomed 
to watch birds should be so much exercised over the 
problem of how young ducks which are hatched in a nest 
high above the water are taken down to it. Walking on a 
cliff here above the sea, I accidently scattered an Eider-Duck 
and her brood. The mother took to flight and the little 
ones, which were in down, rolled over the edge on to rocks 
some seventy feet below. I have often seen little birds fall 
into water or on to grass from a height with impunity, but 
as these had fallen on to boulders and sharp rocks, I thought 
their chance of survival was small. On looking over the 
cliff, however, I saw them pick ihemselves up as if nothing 
had happened and run towards their mother in the sea. 
She obviously expected them to be alive, as she was calling 
loudly. Evidently they are so light and well protected by 
down that a voyage in an aeroplane woul l have no terrors 
for them. 
I was much interested in seeing several Little Auks at 
this place. Grimsey is sa^d to be their most southern 
brcediug-place; but these birds were always flying about 
the part of the shore where there were boulders similar to 
those under which they nest in that island, and though I 
never saw them settle, it is rather strange that they should 
have been here on the 14th of July unless they were 
nesting. 
A chain of lochs and low swampy ground extends across 
