Page:Cassell's book of birds (IA cassellsbookofbi04breh).pdf/192

 

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 (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