The Eider Duck is found in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, occurring in diminished numbers in the latter. In the Outer Hebrides it has many breeding-places, and some nests occur on the Bass Rock, and on the Farn Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, where the eggs have been found in the month of June. The nest is made in some hollow in the turf, and is composed of sea-weed and dried grass, mixed with such marine plants as _Plantago maritima_ and _Coronopsis_. The eggs, which vary in number, are of a longish oval shape, smooth and glossy, and of a pale greenish grey. When they have been laid, the female is said to pluck the down from her breast and cover them over with it. This down, when shaken out, will occupy a space of nine or ten inches. This peculiar quality of the down, however, caused by its elastic character, belongs to all the Anatidæ, and probably not less so to the Anserinæ. The principal home of the Eider Duck is on the bleak and frozen sea-coasts of Northern Europe, and its food, which is obtained by diving, is the bivalve mollusca; also crustacea, fishes, and fish-spawn, together with aquatic worms. It makes its nest on rocks washed by the sea. Sometimes two female birds lay in the same nest, which then contains from nine to ten eggs, for each of them lays from four to six. The nest is roughly built with sea-weed, but it is lined inside with a thick layer of the bird's own down. "The Eider Ducks," as we learn from Willoughby, "build themselves nests on the rocks, and lay good store of very savoury and well-tasted eggs; for the getting of which the neighbouring people let themselves down by ropes dangerously enough, and with the same labour gather the feathers, or eider-dun, our people call them, which are very soft and fit to stuff beds and quilts; for in a small quantity they dilate themselves much, being very springy, and warm the body above any others. These birds are wont at set times to moult their feathers, enriching the fowlers with this desirable merchandise." "When its young are hatched," adds the English naturalist, "it takes them out to sea, and never looks at land till next breeding-time, nor is seen anywhere about our coasts." There seems to be some considerable difference between the down taken from the dead bird and that which the female plucks from her breast. The lightness and elasticity of the latter are such that two or three pounds of it squeezed into a ball which may be held in the hand will expand so as to fill a quilt large enough to cover a bed. When the female prepares her nest, she lines it as above mentioned; when she has laid her four or six eggs, which are about three inches in length and two in breadth, she strips herself a second time; should this down be abstracted, as it generally is, and she is unable to supply more, the male submits himself to the same plucking process, his contribution being known by its paler colour.