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Chap. XIII.
FURS—EIDER-DOWN.
205
cured, but there are many kinds which do not appear in
our English market, and are new to the eye of an
English visitor. The Greenland fox, with its fur of a
bluish hue, powdered with white, is of great beauty, and
not to be met with in our own country; as also the
Norwegian squirrel, the same breed, I believe, as the
gray American, but of a much darker colour, with a
black tail. Then there is the white fox, and many other
varieties too numerous to mention.
The furriers display much taste in their bedside
carpets, footstools, &c. &c., fabricated of a mosaic of
skins; the morsels that are cut off are thus turned to a
very pretty account.
The breast of the sheldrake and other ducks is
employed for children’s muffs, and the sum of 4s.
British would purchase a most respectable one; but the
eider duck here forms the staple commodity of a
furrier’s trade; independent of its furnishing the “ duvet ” *
so common in Germany, which invariably falls off in
the course of the night, leaving the unlucky occcupant
of the bed half perished with cold, the skin of the
flapper, or young duck previous to attaining its plumage,
is much used for cloaks, muffs, &c. &c. Large blankets
are formed of the skins sewed together, the same on
both sides. These are as warm as they are light, and
the furriers get them up with great taste, ornamented
with a border of sheldrake feathers. Martyrs to gout
or rheumatic ailments, to whom the weight of
bedclothing becomes insupportable, find these eider-down
* Holger Jacobæus writes :—“ In Tolsted kro, where travellers are
taken in, was the bed so heaped up with feathers (duvets) that I almost
required a ladder to mount upon it.”
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