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or fourteen of these birds diving in a sort of semicircle towards a small 

 bay or indentation of the shore. As they approached they made quite 

 a noise by fluttering while on the surface of the water. They were 

 driving before them a shoal of small fish. When they got the fish 

 crowded together in the little inlet, they plunged down amongst them, 

 and the slaughter began. I shot one of the largest of the birds ; and 

 when brought to land by laiy dog, I noticed a sucker about six inches 

 long in his throat ; I took him by the legs and gave him a smart snapping 

 shake, and out came the sucker accompanied by five or six minnows 

 about four inches in length. I continued the shaking process, and finally 

 managed to bring to light no fewer than sixty-eight of the smaller fishes 

 in addition to the sucker. Mr. J. T. Coleman, the city taxidermist, has 

 informed me that he once captured a sheldrake which appeared to be in 

 a dying condition, and found that tlie bird had swallowed a large 

 mudpout, the lateral horns of which had i)ierced the skin on each side- 

 of the gullet and disabled him. I kept a sheldrake an entire summer, 

 and after he had devoured, as closely as I could calculate, nearly 4,000 

 small fish, chub, rock bass, black bass, perch and sunfish, he dived out of 

 existence in the attempt to bolt a rock bass as large as my hand. These 

 facts go to illustrate the extreme voracity of this king of the mergansers. 

 The merganser is a fearless bird, seldom turning out of his line of flight 

 to avoid man, and, compared with other ducks, somewhat slow on the 

 wing. The sheldrakes breed on the tributaries of the Ottawa River in 

 considerable numbers. Like wood ducks they build their nests in hollow 

 trees, although they are never seen perched on trees like the former. 

 The young broods may be seen following the mother in the month of 

 •June. When pui'sued they dive and make for land, where they hide in 

 the brush ; whence they emerge again at the call of the parent bird. In 

 contradistinction to the habits of the non-divers, the mergansers, excepting 

 under the circumstances I have mentioned, never take refuge on land. 

 The young sheldrakes, when well grown into the flapper transition, will 

 skim over the top of the water at the rate of twelve mile?; an hour, rapids 

 and chutes being but trifling obstacles in their way. The red-breasted 

 merganser ( Mergus nerrator) is a very rare stranger on the Ottawa or 

 any of its tributaiies. It is a much smaller bird than the sheldrake. 

 The male bird is black on the back and wings, with a red breast and 



