Egyptiacum, s. Liniment of verdigris. It is useful in diseases of the frog and heel, and is formed by boiling five ounces of powdered verdigris, one pound of honey, and seven ounces of vinegar, until they are incorporated.
Eider Duck, St. Cuthbert’s Duck, or Great Black and White Duck (Anas mollissima, Linn.; L’Eider, Buff.), s.
This wild but valuable species is of a size between the goose and the domestic duck, and appears to be one of the graduated links of the chain which connects the two kinds. The full-grown old males generally measure about two feet two inches in length, and two feet eight in breadth, and weigh from six to above seven pounds. The head is large; the middle of the neck small, with the lower part of it spread out very broad, so as to form a hollow between the shoulders, which while the bird is sitting at ease, seems as if fitted to receive its reclining head. The bill is of a dirty yellowish horn colour, darkish in the middle, and measures, from the tip to the corners of the mouth, two inches and a half: the upper mandible is forked in a singular manner towards each eye, and is covered with white feathers on the sides, as far forward as the nostrils. The upper part of the head is of a soft velvet black, divided behind by a dull white stroke pointing downwards: the feathers from the nape of the neck to the throat, are long, or puffed out, overhanging the upper part of the neck, and look as if they had been clipped off at the lower ends; they have the appearance of pale pea-green velvet shag, with a white line dropping downward from the auriculars on each side. The cheeks, chin, upper part of the neck, back, and lesser wing coverts, are white; the scapulars, and secondary quills, next the body, dirty white: bastard wings, and primary quills, brown; the secondaries and greater coverts are the same, but much darker: the lower broad part of the neck, on the front, to the breast, is of a buff colour; but in some specimens tinged with rusty red: the breast, belly, vent, rump, and tail coverts, are of a deep sooty black: tail feathers hoary brown: legs short and yellow: webs and nails dusky. The female is nearly of the same shape, though less than the male, weighing only between five and six pounds; but her plumage is quite different, the ground colour being of a reddish brown, prettily crossed with waved black lines: and in some specimens the neck, breast, and belly, are tinged with ash: the wings are crossed with two bars of white: quills dark: the neck is marked with longitudinal dusky streaks, and the belly is deep brown, spotted obscurely with black.
The eider duck lays from three to five large, smooth, pale olive-coloured eggs; these she deposits and conceals in a nest, or bed, made of a great quantity of the soft, warm elastic down, plucked from her own breast, and sometimes from that of her mate. The groundwork or foundation of the nest is formed of bent grass, sea weeds, or such like coarse materials, and it is placed in as sheltered a spot as the bleak and solitary place can afford.
In Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, Lapland, and some parts of the coast of Norway, the eiders flock together, in particular breeding places, in such numbers, and their nests are so close together, that a person in walking along can hardly avoid treading upon them. The natives of these cold climates eagerly watch the time when the first hatchings of the eggs are laid: of these they rob the nest, and also of the more important article, the down with which it is lined, which they carefully gather and carry off. These birds will afterwards strip themselves of their remaining down, and lay a second hatching, of which also they are sometimes robbed; but, it is said, that when this cruel treatment is too often repeated, they leave the place, and return to it no more.
The eider birds build their nests on little islands, not far from the shore, and sometimes even near the dwellings of the natives, who treat them with such kindness and circumspection as to make them quite tame. In the beginning of June they lay five or six eggs, and it is not unusual to find from ten to sixteen eggs in one nest, with two females, who agree remarkably well together. The whole time of laying continues six or seven weeks, during which time the natives visit the nest, for the purpose of taking the down and eggs, at least once a week. They first carefully remove the female, and then take away the down and part of the eggs; after which she lays afresh, covering her eggs with new down plucked from her breast; this being taken away, the male comes to her assistance, and covers the eggs with his down, which is left till the young are hatched. One female, during the whole time of laying, generally gives half a pound of down. The down from the dead birds is accounted of little worth, having lost its elasticity. There are generally exported fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds of down on the company’s account, exclusive of what is privately sold.—The young ones quit the nest soon after they are hatched, and follow the female, who leads them to the water, where, having taken them on her back, she swims with them a few yards, and then dives, and leaves them floating on the water: in this situation they soon learn to take care of themselves, and are seldom afterwards seen on the land, but live among the rocks, and feed on insects and sea-weed.
“In my way hither,” says Major C., “I measured the flight of the eider ducks by the following method; viz., on arriving off Duck Island, six miles distant from Henly Tickle, I caused the people to lay on their oars; and when I saw the flash of the guns, which were fired at a flock of ducks as they passed through the latter, I observed by my watch how long they were in flying abreast of us. The result of very many observations, ascertained the rate of their flight to be ninety miles in an hour.”