The EIDER DUCKS (_Somateria_) first claim our attention, inasmuch as they are not only the largest and most beautiful of the Diving Ducks, but also the most useful members of the family, ornamenting the seas that they frequent, and conferring inestimable benefit upon the inhabitants of the inhospitable coasts where they are common. Apart from their very considerable size, the Eider Ducks are distinguishable by their long slender beak, the base of which extends up the forehead, and is divided by a triangular projection of the feathers; the upper mandible, which is brightly coloured, terminates in a large nail-like appendage, covering the entire anterior margin of the bill; the tarsi are short, the feet broad-soled, and the toes long; the wings are of moderate length, the second primary quill being the longest; the tertiary quills, which are sickle-shaped, are deflected, and prolonged so as to overlap the primaries; the tail, which is slightly rounded at its extremity, consists of fourteen or sixteen tapering feathers. The general plumage is soft, thick, and fleecy. In the adult male the prevailing colours are simply black and white; the head, however, is ornamented with sea-green, and the breast suffused with roseate pink or brownish yellow; in one species smalt-blue is likewise observable. The colour of the female is brownish grey or reddish brown. All the various species inhabit the colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Although the name of these Ducks is supposed to be derived from the river Eider, dividing the duchy of Holstein from Lower Schleswig, they are in reality seldom found south of the sixty-third degree of north latitude, from which point to the North Cape they are met with in vast numbers all along the coast and in the fiords that indent it in every direction, stretching sometimes 200 miles inland. The northern shores of Russia, Siberia, and the same latitudes of North America, are also inhabited by these valuable fowls. The Eider Ducks are strictly sea-birds; upon dry land they walk with extreme difficulty, and as they clumsily waddle along often stumble and fall down flat on the ground. Their flight seems difficult and fatiguing, requiring the sustained rapid action of their proportionately short wings. They rarely rise to any height in the air, but wing their way straight down into the water beneath, and it is only when they reach this, their proper element, that they begin to show what are their real capabilities. They swim with the body less deeply immersed than the generality of Diving Ducks, but their movements are quicker than those of any of their congeners.