486 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



and Sutton, being favoured by its visits, which, as a rule, take 

 place late in the season, in December, January, and February ; 

 Mr. F. Boyes procured an adult female near Beverley, and 

 he has seen four mature males killed near that place. It 

 occurs rarely in the estuary of the Humber, and has been noted 

 at Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough, and Whitby. At the 

 Teesmouth it was frequent about forty or fifty years ago, 

 but there are only three or four instances of its occurrence 

 in Cleveland communicated during the past twenty years, 

 one being a mature male taken on a pond at Skelton in the 

 winter of 1900. 



Like its congeners, the Goosander and Merganser, it follows 

 the course of the large rivers, and several have been killed on 

 the Tees in the vicinity of Yarm, while on other streams and 

 sheets of fresh water odd examples are reported from time 

 to time. The late Rev. J. W. Chaloner shot a male and female 

 on the Wharfe at Newton Kyme, on 19th January 1892, 

 at the same place where he had killed a male exactly sixty 

 years before ; on the river Nidd at Ribston three were seen 

 and one obtained, in January 1893; while it has been observed 

 near Doncaster, Barnsley, Wakefield, Halifax, Leeds, York, 

 Malton, and other places in this county, the particulars of 

 which it is not necessary to recapitulate. 



The Smew is not now sufficiently common to be known by 

 any vernacular names, but it was called White Nun by 

 Willughby, and Lough Diver by Ralph Johnson of Brignall, 

 in 1678. 



HOODED MERGANSER. 

 Mergus cucullatus (Z.). 



Accidental visitant from North America, of extremely rare occur- 

 rence. 



The true home of this Merganser is in northern America, 

 whence, at rare intervals, stragglers have wandered to this 

 coimtry. Its occurrence in Yorkshire was chronicled by 



