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.