490 ANATIDiE. 



Merganser, the females of the two species being very 

 similar. The belief that it bred on some of the lochs of 

 the Highlands was not, however, unfounded, although actual 

 proof was not obtained until 1871, when undoubted eggs 

 were sent to Mr. Harvie-Brown by a gamekeeper in Perth- 

 shire, the down and a feather from the hollow tree where the 

 nest was placed, being also procured. During succeeding 

 years corroborative evidence has been obtained respecting 

 Perthshire; and Mr. E. Booth has figured in his ' Rough 

 Notes ' four young birds which had been watched until they 

 were seven weeks old, " hatched in one of the large pine- 

 forests that stretch for miles along the mountain sides in 

 the Northern Highlands." There is testimony that the 

 species nests, or has done so, in Sutherlandshire, Argyllshire, 

 and elsewhere ; on which point many interesting details 

 will be found in a paper by Mr. J. Hamilton Buchanan, 

 published in the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society 

 of Edinburgh, vol. v. p. 189. 



To Ireland the Goosander is, as a rule, a somewhat rare 

 winter visitor, but during the severe January of 1881 more 

 were shot, according to Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, than had ever 

 been known before ; as many as eight together being seen 

 on the Blackwater, near Cappoquin. It has never been 

 suspected of nesting in any part of that island. 



The Goosander is of very rare occurrence in the Faeroes, 

 but it breeds and is said to be resident in Iceland ; although 

 it has not as yet been taken in Greenland. It is well known 

 in Norway ; Nilsson says it is not uncommon on the lakes 

 and rivers of Sweden ; and Dann states that it is widely 

 dispersed from Scona to Lapland, as far as the wooded dis- 

 tricts extend, and that it breeds at Gellivara. Linnaeus, in 

 his Tour in Lapland, describes a male Goosander which had 

 been caught in a net set for pike, near Lycksele ; and Acerbi 

 in Jiis Travels, speaking of the banks of a river near Kardis, 

 in Lapland, says, " The Mergus merganser, instead of build- 

 ing a small nest, like the Ducks, on the banks or among 

 the reeds and rushes, chooses to lay her eggs in the trunk 

 of an old tree, in which time or the hand of man has made 



