Bill greenish; down its centre, halfway to the nostrils, is a wedge of feathers which are black, like those of the forehead and crown; the latter bisected by a white line running to the pale green nape, and divided by another white line from a green patch on each side of the neck; cheeks, back, and wing-coverts white; long sickle-shaped secondaries yellowish white; wing-feathers, rump, and tail nearly black, with a white patch on each side of the latter; breast rosy buff; abdomen black; legs and feet dull green. Length, twenty-five inches. _Female_: rufous-brown barred with blackish. * * * * * The male eider is a large and strikingly handsome duck in its conspicuous and strongly contrasted colours--velvet-black and snowy white, variegated with buff and delicate pale sea-green. But it is exclusively a sea-duck, living most of the time away from land, and most people know it only by name, as the bird that yields the exceedingly light and elastic down with which bed-quilts are stuffed. It inhabits the northern coasts of Great Britain, its most southern breeding-station being on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. It is gregarious at all seasons, and is usually seen in small flocks on the sea. It sits lightly on the water, swims and dives well, and flies rapidly near the surface. It feeds much near the shore, but seldom comes to land, except in the breeding season. Its food is obtained at the bottom of the sea, and Mr. A. Chapman says of its feeding habits: ‘The eider resembles the scaup in many of its habits, and both ducks are intimately acquainted with the local geography of the sea-bottom: all its depth for miles, and the position of every submerged reef and shallow, are well known to them. But while the scaup contents himself with the smaller shellfish and crustacea, the eider, with his strong hooked beak, can crush and devour dog-crabs nearly as broad as one’s fist.’ Charles Dixon thus describes its language and love-making: ‘It is a remarkably silent bird, except in the breeding season, when I have often heard the male utter a note something like that of the ringdove, as he swam round and round his mate, bobbing his head rapidly all the time. On one occasion I met with a party of these birds evidently engaged in pairing, my attention being drawn to them by a chorus of grunting notes the males were uttering. It was a most animated sight, and the drakes were constantly chasing each other with angry cries, or swimming excitedly round the ducks, with trembling wings and heads swaying up and down. The noise made by this party of eiders could be distinctly heard a mile across the water.’