44 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



tinged reddish about the head and neck, and marked with a few 

 white patches, and white below, have been taken in the hills, the 

 eggs have not yet been found in India. They are cream-coloured 

 and very smooth, and number over half a dozen. The nest, 

 well-lined with down, is generally in a hole in a tree or bank in 

 the birds' known breeding-places, which extend all round the 

 world in the northern regions, the supposed distinctness of the 

 American race resting on the most trivial characters. The female 

 often carries her young on her back when swimming. It is 

 a curious thing that there seems to be no native name recorded 

 for this most conspicuous species. 



Red 'breasted Merganser. 



Merganser serrator. 



The red-breasted merganser, which is, like the goosander, 

 found all round the world in the Northern Hemisphere, is chiefly 

 a salt-water bird when it leaves its breeding-haunts on the fresh 

 waters of the north, so that it is not surprising that it should be 

 one of the rarest of our water-fowl. It is probable, however, 

 that it is often confused with the goosander, as the general 

 appearance of the two is very much alike. 



The male of the present bird can, however, easily be 

 distinguished by having the under-parts not uniformly white up 

 to the green-black head, but the white neck cut off from the 

 abdomen by the reddish-brown, black-streaked breast ; on each 

 side of this there is also a patch of black-and-white feathers, and 

 the flanks are grey in appearance above, being finely pencilled 

 with black. Thus the bird looks darker altogether on the water, 

 and seen on the wing the coloured breast-patch should attract 

 attention. The bird also has a long hairy-looking crest, not a 

 short bushy mane as in the male goosander. 



The female is much more difficult to distinguish from that of 

 the goosander, but the distinctions are clear enough if carefully 

 looked into. The crest in the present bird is short and not 

 noticeable, the head itself is dull brown, with hardly a tinge of 

 chestnut, the back is mottled drab, not a distinct uniform grey, 

 and the white wing-patch found in both species is in this one 



