LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 17 



canoe, creep ashore, and, trusting to their protecting coloring, crouch 

 motionless among the rocks and small plants. 



Rev. Manley B, Townsend contributes the following pretty picture 

 of a family party : 



One summer day, toward evening, as I sat upon the shore of a wilderness lake, 

 drinking in the beauty of the forest and the mountain, a flock of red-breasted mer- 

 gansers came sailing around a rocky point, close inshore. Tliere were 10, led by a 

 wary old male in full adult plumage. The otlier nine were mucli duller of color. I 

 took them for the mother and her eight children. How alert! How wary! How 

 incomparably wild! Suspiciously they scanned me, but I sat immovable. Plainly 

 they were nonplussed. Yet they were taking no chances. Silently they submerged 

 until only their heads and upper necks were above the surface, and turning swam 

 quietly off out into the lake. A calculated movement on my part, and off went the 

 whole family, led by the lather, leaving a foamy wake to mark their tumultuous 



Plumages. — -[Author's note: The downy young red-breasted mer- 

 ganser is exactly like the young American merganser except for two 

 very slight differences in the head ; the nostrils in the red-breasted 

 are in the basal third of the bill, whereas in the American they are 

 in the central third; and the white loral stripe is tinged with ])rownish 

 or fluffy but with a more or less distinct white spot under the eye. 



The down is worn for a long time. The first of the plumage 

 appears on the under parts, then comes the tail, the flanks, and the 

 scapulars in the order named; the remainder of the body plumage 

 follows, then that of the head and neck: the wings ajipear last, and 

 the bird is fully grown before it can fly. The last of the do^vn is 

 on the hind neck or central back. 



Millais (1913) says that in its first plumage the young male — 



resembles the adult female, but the crest is less, the bill much shorter, and the plum- 

 age of the upper parts more slaty and not nearly so brown, and the cheeks more red 

 with less white. The ends of the tail are also worn. By the end of October young 

 males are easily recognized by their superior size and bill. It is not until December 

 that much change takes place. The red-brown crest is then abundant, and black 

 feathers begin to appear on the sides of the crown and cheeks, chin, mantle, and 

 scapulars. The tail and rump also begin to molt to blue gray, and many vermicu- 

 lated feathers mixed with slaty-brown ones come in on the thighs and flanks. By 

 the end of March some white feathers appear on the scapulars and the first white, 

 broadly black-edged feathers come in on the sides of the breast overlapping the wings. 

 These prominent feathers are, however, never complete as in the case of the adult 

 males, but are always divided in color, the lower halves being red and vermiculated 

 with black from the broad black edge to the white above. The nape is now very 

 dark-brown edged with worn blue gray, and not a clear rich red brown, as in the 

 female. The long inner secondaries, similar to adult males, now also appear. 



I have seen young males in this plumage, with immature backs 

 and wings, and with more or less black mottling in the heads and 

 necks, in March, April, May, and Juno, during which time the old 

 males are, of coui-se, in full nuptial plumage. 



