42 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



box nearly half full of sticks three or four inches long. As these 

 sticks are carried in the birds' bills by the middle, they would 

 naturally strike the hole crosswise and could not enter, so when the 

 birds get near the box they turn sideways and poke the sticks in 

 end first, following in and arranging them afterward. 



The merganser is a fish duck nearly as large as our common 

 domestic duck, and is known under the names of sheldrake and 

 sawbill duck. The male is considerably larger than the female; 

 he has a jet-black head, and the black extends down the neck for 

 about two inches, where the color changes to a pure white, the 

 line being as regular and distinct as the painting on the smoke- 

 stack of a steamship. The body is generally white, with black 

 markings on the wings and some black on the body; the breast is 

 a beautiful salmon color when the bird is killed, but if mounted 

 soon fades to a pure white. The male merganser in full plumage 

 is one of our most beautiful birds. 



The female, besides being smaller, is of a grayish color, and the 

 plumage and general appearance are entirely unlike the male, so 

 that the sex can be easily determined even at a long distance. 



This bird is common on the Champlain and waters of the Adi- 

 rondacks. Like all fish ducks, it has a long, sharp bill, which is 

 serrated with sawtooth-shaped notches strongly suggesting teeth, 

 a fact which has given this bird much interest to our evolutionary 

 scientists. 



I have noticed a habit of this bird that I believe is entirely 

 unique, and one I am surprised that our authorities on birds have 

 not mentioned- — that is, that the males are entirely migratory and 

 the females are not. After the lakes and still waters freeze the 

 mergansers go to the rivers which are open in some places on the 

 rapids all winter. For more than twenty years I have seen female 

 mergansers on the Au Sable River all winter, and I have frequently 

 seen them on the other Adirondack rivers; but I have never seen 

 a male merganser in the winter, and in the late fall the males and 

 females gather in separate flocks, and when the male mergansers 

 appear in the spring they are always in flocks by themselves. 



I think the merganser lives entirely on fish, and it is surpris- 

 ing to one who has made no observations on the subject to know 

 what an enormous number of young fish a flock of these ducks will 

 destroy in a season. I quote the following from my notebook: 

 " October 13, 1882, killed fish duck (female merganser) in Slush 

 Pond, and found in her throat and stomach one pickerel, four black 

 bass, and eleven sun perch. Bob (my brother) present. October 

 18, 1882, killed same kind of duck on Lake Champlain, and took 

 out of her sixty small perch. James R. Graves present." 



