it gradually becomes commoner to the northwards; the
examples observed being principally birds of the year. In
Northumberland—the only English county in which it
breeds—the Eider Duck used to nest on Coquet Island,
near Warkworth : a locality abandoned for many years
owing to molestation, but the Editor believes that it is
again resorted to by a few pairs. On the Fame Islands, a
little further north, it has been well known as a breeding
species for centuries, and from the circumstance of its nesting
on an islet once the abode of St. Cuthbert, as well as
on Holy Island or Lindisfarne, equally associated with
that celebrated Saint of the north-country, this species
has been called St. Cuthbert’s Duck. To the west side of
England the Eider is only an irregular winter visitant.
In Scotland the Eider Duck breeds on the shores and
islands of the Firth of Forth ; and, probably, where suitable
localities present themselves, along the whole east coast ; as
it certainly does in the Orkneys, and the Shetlands. In
Sutherlandshire, it is of sparing and local distribution during
the breeding-season ; and Sir John Campbell-Orde informs
the Editor that in North Uist and the neighbouring islands
of the Outer Hebrides there is only one locality in which a
number of birds nest in proximity. About Colonsay and
Islay it is very abundant, but it does not appear to breed on
the mainland of Argyll, Ayr, or Wigton. It is somewhat
remarkable that the Eider should be a very rare visitor to the
Irish coast ; one in Belfast Bay, two or three at the estuary
of the Moy, two in Tralee Bay, one in Cork Harbour, and
one in Wexford, being all the examples recorded by Sir R.
Payne-Gallwey.
The Eider Duck occurs irregularly in winter on the coasts
of Northern Germany, the Netherlands, and France; and
stragglers have been obtained on the inland waters of the
Continent, as well as in the Mediterranean as far east as the
head of the Adriatic. Its home must, however, be sought
for in the north. It breeds in the Faroes, Iceland, and
Norway, where it is protected by law ; and northwards it
can be traced to Spitsbergen (where birds are on the average
smaller), and Franz-Josef Land. It nests in Novaya
Zemlya, but eastward it seems doubtful if its range extends
beyond Cape Chelyuskin, for Pallas’s statement that it is
found at the mouth of the Lena and in Kamtschatka is
unconfirmed, and it is possible that he may have mistaken
for it a larger and distinct species, Somateria v.-nigrum, the
male of which lias a black chevron under the chin. Our
Eider is found in Greenland, as far north as Thank-God
Harbour, in 81° BÖ7 N. lat., and westward to the mouth of
the Coppermine River in Arctic America ; but on the North
Atlantic coast, from Labrador to the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
it is replaced in summer by S. dresseri, in which the bill is
more gibbous, the bare space behind the nostril more extensive,
and the sickle-shaped secondaries are more developed.
This form will probably be exterminated by the Indians and
fishermen at no distant date.
The breeding of the Eider Duck under the protection
afforded to it in Northern Europe for the sake of its valuable
down has often been described. Hewitson mentions the
Eiders as the most numerous of the Ducks breeding on
some of the islands on the west coast of Norway, where they
are strictly preserved. Upon one island which his party
visited with the keeper, the females were sitting in great
numbers, and were so perfectly tame and on such familiar
terms with the latter, that some of them would even allow
him to stroke them on the back with his hand. The male
birds at the time were floating about in hundreds among the
islands, giving the sea a lively and beautiful appearance.
A fuller, and more interesting account is given by Mr. C. H.
Shepherd in his book on the North-west Peninsula of
Iceland. Although the nest of the Eider is usually at no
great distance from the water, it has occasionally been found
a mile or two inland, and also at a considerable elevation.
Major Feilden states that he has taken one in the Shetlands,
placed in the midst of knee-deep heather, at least
500 ft. above sea-level; and Müller mentions having found
one on the top of the island of Hestoe, at an altitude of
1000 to 1200 ft.