at a slight distance apart. At intervals they would pause, stand or sit for a little, and again jog on together. These birds must, I think, have been selecting a place in which to lay their eggs, and if so, it would seem that they like to do this in pairs. I also saw a male eider-duck sitting for a considerable time amidst the heather right away from the sea. It is, of course, impossible to mistake the sexes after the males have assumed their adult plumage, and, moreover, this bird subsequently flew down into the little bay just beneath me. I say this because it is authoritatively stated that the male eider-duck never goes near the nest. It is probable that a week or so later this bird could not have sat where he was without being near to a nest at any rate; and, moreover, what should take the male bird from the sea, or its immediate coast, at all, if it were not some impulse appropriate to the season? This and a statement made to me by a native in regard to this point, which went still further against authority, makes me wish that I had been able to see a little more. As it is, I have only a right to ask with regard to this one male eider-duck, "Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?"
It is difficult to tire of watching these birds, ducks, yet so wonderfully marine. The freedom of the sea is upon them, far more than Aphrodite they might have sprung from its foam—it is of the male with his snowy breast that one thinks this. One cannot see them and think of a pond or a river—yet, always, they are so palpably ducks. It is delicious to see them heave with the swell of the wave against some low sloping rock—lapping it like the water itself—and then remain upon it, standing or sitting—living jetsam that the sea
