HOODED MERGANSER. 509 



ANSERES. AN AT ID Ji. 



Mergus cucullatus, Linnaeus.* 

 THE HOODED MERGANSER. 



Mergus cucullatus. 



We are indebted to Selby for the first notice of the 

 Hooded Merganser as a straggler to Britain ; the skin of a 

 female bird said to have been obtained at Yarmouth, in Nor- 

 folk, during the winter of 1829, having been sent to Selby by 

 Mr. Elton, of Redlaud, Bristol. The occurrence was recorded 

 in the Transactions of the Natural History of Northumberland, 

 Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, vol. i. p. 292, and also 

 in the third volume of the Edinburgh Journal of Natural and 

 Geographical Science, page 238, by Selby, w^ho was informed 

 that other instances of the capture of birds of this species had 

 occurred. A note by Prof. Newton in the ' Transactions 

 of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society,' ii. p. 408, 

 tends, however, to cast a doubt upon the supposition that this 

 example was really killed in British waters. The late Mr. 



* Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 207 (1766). 



