fearless; they not only unhesitatingly take possession of the platforms,
boxes, ledges, and other contrivances prepared for them, but allow
themselves to be driven to the most suitable places, without being at
all alarmed or disturbed at the presence of their conductors. They come
into the immediate neighbourhood of the solitary huts of their keepers,
and will enter them in search of a snug corner in which to build;
indeed, it not unfrequently happens that adventurous females will take
possession of bedrooms, stables, and other similar localities, to the
great inconvenience and discomfort of the keeper's wife. At first the male
bird always accompanies his mate in these pedestrian excursions in search
of lodgings, which generally occupy them during the morning; about noon
they fly away towards the fiords or swim about upon the open sea; but
towards evening they come on shore to pass the night. While the female is
employed in laying her eggs, the male watches over the nest with great
perseverance and devotion; but no sooner is the number of eggs complete,
and the female begins in earnest the work of incubation, than the male
flies off, leaving both nest and wife, and hastens to join the society
of other males who may be disporting themselves far out at sea. Upon the
rocks and "scaars" upon the coast of Norway these forlorn widowers may be
seen playing together by hundreds. The nest of the Eider Duck is a very
simple affair, consisting merely of a few twigs, stalks of seaweed, blades
of grass, straw, and similar materials, such as can be picked up in the
immediate neighbourhood, heaped together in the most slovenly manner; the
rougher the framework, however, so much thicker and more valuable is the
rich lining of down--the costly toll which the breeding birds have to
pay to the masters of the soil for their temporary residence. After the
lapse of a few days, the female sits most assiduously; in places where
she is accustomed to the sight of men she will not stir even should they
approach her nest; she simply bows her head to the ground, and slightly
spreads her wings so as to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. The
colour of her plumage generally coincides so exactly with that of the
surrounding rocks, that to an unpractised eye the bird is with difficulty
distinguishable from the ground on which it sits. We have more than once
had convincing proof of the efficacy of this mode of concealment, in the
shape of a sharp bite on the leg, inflicted by the beak of a brooding
female, of whose presence we were quite unaware before--at the last
moment--she flew away. Those females who happen to have taken up their
abode in the vicinity of men will allow themselves to be taken up from the
nest while their eggs are examined, after which they immediately settle
down again to brood, without showing the slightest desire to escape.
Frequently we have sat close to their nests for hours together, have
stroked their feathers, put our hands between their bodies and their eggs
to note the temperature, and yet few of them have stirred from the spot.
Some of them would occasionally bite our fingers as if in play, but the
majority testified neither timidity nor annoyance. Some we purposely took
to a little distance from their nesting-place and placed upon the ground,
but they would immediately waddle back to their domicile, arrange the down
around the eggs, and quietly resume their position, as if nothing had
happened. When left quite to themselves the brooding females quit their
nests regularly every morning, taking care, however, to cover their eggs
warmly with down, so that they may not be chilled during their absence;
having done this, away they fly out to sea, and dive assiduously for half
an hour in search of food, and in this short period manage to fill their
crops almost to bursting with various kinds of shell-fish, after which
they return at once to their charge. The males are much more timid than
the females, even when with them at the breeding season or whilst keeping
watch over their nests. Should any one approach, they immediately get
into a terrible flurry, toss their heads, call loudly to their wives, and
after blustering for a little time, fly off to sea, whence they anxiously
watch the proceedings of the disturber of their quietude. After the lapse
of twenty-five or twenty-six days, the young ones break their shells and
make their appearance; they are beautiful little creatures, clad in rich
parti-coloured down. From the first moment of their birth they are well
able both to swim and to dive; they also walk with considerable facility,
even better than their mother, who takes them, before their downy coat
has had time to dry, down to the sea. Should the breeding-place be far
from the sea, and the departure of the little flock be unusually delayed,
the keepers frequently come to their assistance, and, putting the entire
brood into a basket, walk with them to the shore, followed by the waddling
parents, who seem quite satisfied with the arrangement.
[Illustration: EIDER DUCKS AT HOME.]
The sea, indeed, is the safest place for these helpless nestlings, as
there they can most readily escape from their natural enemies the Falcons,
Ravens, and Skuas. Very frequently several mothers, accompanied by their
little families, consort together, and then they present to the observer
a very attractive spectacle. Should the parent birds perceive that they
are followed by a boat, they at once begin to paddle away with all their
strength, hoping to escape from their pursuers, and it is not till the
boat has come close upon them that they decide upon taking wing; by
so doing they are of course compelled to desert the young birds, who,
however, seem very well to understand how to provide for their own safety,
as they immediately make for the land, and scrambling on to the shore, may
be seen running nimbly in search of some convenient hiding-place, dropping
down between stones, or concealing themselves behind slight inequalities
of the ground, from which they are scarcely distinguishable. Should the
threatened danger pass away, they will be found after a little time
hastening back to the sea, into which they immediately plunge, and paddle
away directly from the shore, until they are joined either by their own
mother or by some other elderly female belonging to their flock. Should
their mother be killed, the young, if unable to do without assistance,
at once join some other family, into which they are received without
the slightest reluctance, and tended and cared for by the old birds
precisely as if they were their own offspring. The instinct for brooding
in the Eider Ducks is indeed very remarkable; they will even steal each
other's eggs in order to brood upon them. The nestlings grow rapidly, and
often within a week from their birth are well able to procure their own
food; they remain, nevertheless, in company with their parents till the
early part of the following year. In their earliest infancy they are fed
with small crustaceans and other soft-bodied animals; at a later period
they live for the most part upon bivalve shell-fish, but likewise feed
willingly on fishes, or indeed on any small marine animals that they may
meet with. Although the Eider Ducks constitute a considerable portion of
the wealth of the countries they inhabit, they are by no means cared for
and protected as they might be. Intelligent landholders, whose property
the breeding-places are, take the opportunity while the birds are laying
to remove some of their eggs, and thus succeed in making them lay a
greater number than they otherwise would do. Moreover, they are content to
wait patiently until the breeding-time is over before they gather the down
from their nests. More generally, however, neither birds nor eggs are
taken the least care of. Notwithstanding that their flesh is not by any
means palatable, these Ducks are continually persecuted and slaughtered,
and the consequence is, that in Spitzbergen and other localities where the
sale of the Eider-down used to be reckoned by the hundredweight, it is
now reckoned only by pounds. Malmgren assures us that it is a rare thing
to see young birds in the autumn; and the bird-catchers are loud in their
complaints of a scarcity, for which they have only their own improvidence
to blame. In Greenland the diminution, although not quite so conspicuous,
is still very great, not more than a thousand pounds being now collected
there annually. "Formerly," says Holboell, "the gross quantity of down
procured in South Greenland in the course of a year was 5,007 lbs., and
North Greenland produced about half that quantity." According to the usual
reckoning a dozen nests yield a pound weight of the raw material, so that
every year 104,520 birds were not only despoiled of their down but also
robbed of their eggs.
THE TRUE EIDER DUCK, OR ST. CUTHBERT'S DUCK.
The TRUE EIDER DUCK, or ST. CUTHBERT'S DUCK (_Somateria mollissima_),
has the cheeks, chin, back, and breast white, the latter with a reddish
tinge. Front and sides of the head black; nape, to the throat, pea-green;
quills and tail brown, marked on the wings with velvet-black. The eye is
reddish brown, the beak greenish yellow, the foot olive-green. The length
of this bird is twenty-four inches, the breadth forty; the length of wing
eleven inches, and length of tail three inches and a half. The female is
smaller than the male, and her plumage rust-red, marked on the head and
neck with longitudinal brown streaks, elsewhere with crescent-shaped black
spots; her under side with deep brown, slightly lined with black. After
the breeding season the plumage of the male loses much of its beautiful
glistening appearance, both head and neck become blackish grey, more
darkly clouded, the shoulders greyish black, and the region of the crop
yellowish white, marked with black and rust-brown upon the borders of the
individual feathers. It seems probable that this change of plumage is
not produced by moulting, but by a gradual change in the colour of the
feathers.
This valuable Duck is met with throughout the northern regions of the
globe, its range extending from Jutland to Spitzbergen, and from the west
coast of Europe along its northern shores to Greenland and Iceland. It is
a constant resident in some of the northern parts of England and Scotland,
and has the name of St. Cuthbert's Duck from the numbers that nest in that
island. Its most southern breeding-places are upon the Island of Sylt and
other small Danish islands in the same latitude, and from thence north it
is met with in continually increasing numbers. In Iceland, Greenland, and
Norway, it is very abundant, and is preserved with the utmost strictness.
Their nests along the coast of Norway, we are told, produce, from the down
they yield, on an average, a profit of five pounds a-piece in the year;
so that a small barren rock, frequented by these birds, becomes a very
valuable property, and has often been the subject of litigation between
Norwegian landholders. Some years ago the Eider Fowl were killed in such
numbers that their extinction in that country seemed imminent, but in 1847
the Norwegian Parliament passed a law for their relief, and since that
time their pursuers have been obliged to confine themselves to robbing
the nests; the consequence is that these Ducks are now very plentiful,
and from the perfect security in which they live have attained a degree
of impudent assurance unsurpassed by the London Sparrows, or their own
distant connections on the ornamental waters in our parks. In the town
of Tromsöe they come to the house doors to be fed, and walk about as if
strongly impressed with the consciousness of their own importance. In
the northern parts of Great Britain these birds are seen assembling in
groups along the shores of the mainland about April, from whence they
cross to the adjacent islands early in May. The nest of this species,
which contains from four to ten (generally six or eight) well-shaped,
smooth-shelled eggs, usually of a dusky greyish green, is formed of fine
seaweed, and is lined, after the eggs are deposited, with down from the
mother's breast, placed so thickly that the eggs are completely hidden
from view. The down from a single nest, when cleansed, although sufficient
in bulk to fill a man's hat, seldom weighs more than one ounce. In
northern countries the business of robbing the nests of this valuable
material begins soon after the eggs are laid, the female replacing it by a
fresh supply from her breast, until it is quite bare, when the male bird
in turn strips himself to provide a warm covering for his young. "In a
month's time," says Mr. Selby, "the little family are led or carried in
their parent's bill to the water, where they swim and dive with facility;
the mother meanwhile carefully watching over them to defend them from
their biped foes, and feigning lameness to lure their pursuers from the
spot."
[Illustration: THE EIDER DUCK (_Somateria mollissima_).]
"The care which the mother takes of her young," says Audubon, "cannot
be exceeded. She leads them gently in a close flock in shallow waters,
where, by diving, they procure food, and at times, when the young are
fatigued and at some distance from the shore, she sinks her body in the
water and receives them on her back, where they remain several minutes.
At the approach of their merciless enemy, the Black-backed Gull, the
mother beats the water with her wings, as if intending to raise the spray
around her, and, on her uttering a peculiar sound, the young dive in all
directions, while she endeavours to entice the marauder to follow her, by
feigning lameness, or she leaps out of the water and attacks her enemy,
often so vigorously that, exhausted and disappointed, he is glad to fly
off, on which she alights near the rocks, among which she expects to find
her brood, and calls them to her side. Now and then I saw two females
which had formed an attachment for each other, as if for the purpose of
more effectually contributing to the safety of their young, and it was
very seldom that I saw these prudent mothers assailed by the Gulls."
We must not omit to mention that the eagerness of these birds for brooding
is so great, that, when robbed of their eggs, they have frequently been
known to steal the eggs or even the young of others of their species.
In its natural state the Eider Duck subsists upon small fish, molluscs,
crustaceans, and fish spawn, but when kept confined will eat grain. The
flight of this species, which is steady and rapid, is usually carried on
near the surface of the water; it dives with facility, and is capable of
remaining submerged for a considerable time.
THE KING EIDER.
The KING EIDER (_Somateria spectabilis_) has the bill, the sides of
which are elevated, arched and ridged, surrounded by a fine black band;
a similar band runs from the base of the under mandible down each side
of the neck. The upper head is grey, the cheeks are sea-green, the neck,
back, and sides of the rump white, the front of the breast is light
flesh-red; the scapulars, lower part of back, wings, tail, and belly, are
white, and the rest of the feathers black; tertials, as in the preceding
species, deflected. The eye is brown, beak red, and foot reddish. The
female is distinguishable from that of the True Eider by her light reddish
brown plumage, and by the structure of the base of the bill.
General Sabine states (in the Appendix to Sir E. Parry's first Voyage)
that these birds were abundant in the North Georgian Islands, their nests
being placed on the ground in the neighbourhood of fresh-water ponds, and
their food consisting of the aquatic vegetation. Sir J. C. Ross says,
"Vast numbers of this beautiful Duck resort annually to the shores and
islands of the Arctic Regions in the breeding season, and have on many
occasions afforded a valuable and salutary supply of fresh provision to
the crews of the vessels employed on those seas. On our late voyages
comparatively few were obtained, although seen in very great numbers.
They do not retire far to the south in the winter, but assemble in large
flocks, the males by themselves, and the females with their young brood
are often met with in the Atlantic Ocean, far distant from any land, where
the numerous crustaceans and other marine animals afford them abundance of
food."
This species, which very rarely occurs in Great Britain, was found, on one
occasion, according to Dr. Latham, about June, at Papa Westra, one of the
Orkney Islands. The eggs, six in number, rather smaller than those of the
True Eider Duck, were embedded in down, and placed on a rock overhanging
the sea. Nuttall states that the eggs of this bird are whitish, while
Yarrell describes them as pale green, and Audubon as of a uniform dull
greenish hue. Latham tells us that in Greenland, where the King Ducks are
common, the natives assemble in canoes, and by their shouts terrify the
birds, which dive to avoid them; but as the place where they are about to
emerge is betrayed by the bubbling of the water, their pursuers follow
them, and the same game being several times repeated, the birds are at
length tired out and easily secured.
* * * * *
The WESTERN or STELLER'S EIDER DUCK (_Somateria_ or _Heniconetta
Stelleri_) is a smaller species, still more beautifully coloured and
marked. In the male the head, nape, and sides of neck are white, a spot on
the forehead, and a transverse band at the back of the head are green, a
circle round the eye, the fore and hinder neck, the rump, tail, and points
of the quills are black. The upper wing-covers and shoulders are white,
striped with dark blue. The under side, as far as the blackish brown
centre of the belly, is yellowish brown. In the plumage of the female
reddish brown predominates. The eye is brown, the beak grey, and the foot
greenish grey. The Western Eider Duck was first described by Steller, from
specimens which he obtained in Kamschatka, where it builds on inaccessible
rocks. But few specimens of this rare Duck have been shot in England. This
species is exclusively a sea bird, is never seen entering the estuaries of
rivers, and breeds among rocks and precipices. It flies in large flocks.
* * * * *
The SCOTERS (_Oidemia_) are birds of considerable size, with remarkably
dark plumage. Their beak is moderately long, broad, irregularly swollen
at its junction with the forehead, and bright coloured. The tarsi are
short, the toes long and large, and the wings of medium length; the tail,
which is wedge-shaped, consists of fourteen feathers; the soft and velvety
plumage only exhibits colour on the head and wings. All the species
belonging to this group are inhabitants of high latitudes, and breed
within the Arctic Circle.
THE VELVET SCOTER.
The VELVET SCOTER (_Oidemia fusca_), one of the species most common
in Great Britain, is coal-black, with the exception of a spot beneath
the eye, and another on the wing, which are white; the beak is bright
yellowish red, marked with black at the edges and at its base; the
feet are pale flesh-red, varied with black at the joints; the eye is
pearl-white. The female is dark brown, with the exception of a white
spot in the region of the ear, a white patch upon the wing, a yellowish
bridle-streak, and a grey place upon the centre of the breast. Her eye
is brown, her beak black, and her foot greenish yellow. The length of
this species is twenty-four inches; the breadth forty inches; the length
of the wing twelve inches, and that of the tail three inches and a
half. The range of the Velvet Scoter extends from the northern parts of
Scandinavia eastward as far as America. In the north of Russia and Siberia
it is common. During its excursions it not only visits our shores, but
goes still further southwards, and has occasionally been seen even upon
the coasts of Spain and in Greece, but rarely shows itself inland. It
makes its appearance in our latitudes late in the year, generally about
the middle of November or the beginning of December, and returns to its
northern home early in the spring. In the neighbourhood of the Gulf
Stream, where the sea remains open, it may be met with throughout the
winter, frequenting the fjords and bays, sometimes in numerous flocks, at
others only in small parties, and seldom visits the shores.
The Velvet Scoter walks and flies badly, but swims well and dives
admirably. Naumann states that it is less shy than the generality of its
race, a statement which we cannot subscribe to; in Norway, at least, we
have always observed it to be one of the most timid and circumspect of
diving birds. The food of these Ducks consists principally of bivalve
shell-fish; in their breeding-places they may likewise procure insects,
worms, and probably small fishes; but it is upon the bivalve molluscs
that they chiefly feed, and to obtain these they will even leave their
brooding-ground and fly out to sea. They have also been observed to feed
upon vegetable substances.
Upon the mountain lakes of Southern Norway the Velvet Scoters breed
with tolerable regularity; and further to the north there is hardly a
sheet of water of this description, if not too remote from the sea, upon
which their young are not to be found. About the middle of June their
rudely-constructed nests may be met with hidden in bushes or high grass,
or amid tufts of rushes. The nest itself is constructed of coarse sticks,
stalks, and leaves, loosely heaped together, and lined with down plucked
from the body of the female. The eight or ten eggs constituting a brood
are elongated, smooth, and shining, and of a reddish yellow colour. The
young remain in their native lakes until fully able to fly, and do not
betake themselves to the sea till the end of October.
* * * * *
The FEN DUCKS (_Aythya_) are handsome, strongly-built birds, with
moderately long beaks, which are not dilated at the base; short,
broad-soled feet; moderately long, pointed wings, and smooth plumage.
The range of the members of this group extends from the Arctic Circle
to the tropics. They do not inhabit very high latitudes, and only visit
the south during their migrations. They may, therefore, be considered as
properly belonging to the temperate zone. During the winter months they
are to be met with in Southern Russia and the low countries bordering on
the Danube, also in Greece, South Italy, Spain, and throughout the north
of Africa. These birds make their migrations by night, great numbers of
them flying together in large flocks, generally without any regular order,
but sometimes arranged in converging oblique lines. In the spring they are
usually seen in pairs or in small parties. During the summer they visit
lakes of fresh water, large ponds, morasses, or fens having a considerable
surface of water of sufficient depth, sometimes resorting to smaller ponds
which may happen to be in the neighbourhood. As regards their locomotive
powers, these Ducks are decidedly the best endowed of their family--they
can walk tolerably well, but, being very unwieldy, they do not willingly
come upon dry land, and then only to repose upon some sandbank, or beat
up any masses of reeds that may be lying on the margin of the pond. When
swimming their body is not so deeply immersed as is that of some of their
congeners; they cut through the waves, however, with the same rapidity,
and dive as quickly as any of their neighbours. Their flight is hasty and
performed by frequent strokes of their wings, that make a perceptible
rushing sound, but do not propel them very quickly through the air;
nevertheless, they do not seem to become fatigued so quickly as might be
expected.
During the summer time the Fen Ducks live almost entirely on vegetable
substances; bulbous roots, buds, and tender shoots of trees, succulent
leaves, blossoms and seeds of water-plants, constitute the staple of their
diet; they will, however, likewise catch aquatic insects, fishes, and pond
mollusca; in fact, they seem to like variety. During their migrations they
appear more partial to animal food, and when they indulge in this to any
extent, their flesh, at other times excellent food, acquires a somewhat
disagreeable flavour.