110 THE BIRDS OF DEVONSHIRE. 



RED-BREASTED MERGANSER.— ikfprr/ws serrator (Linn.) 

 A WINTER visitant to our coast and estuaries. The 

 late Mr. Bulteel once fired at a party of eight 

 Mergansers at the mouth of the river Erme, but his 

 duck gun burst in the firing. Baron A. von Hiigel 

 met with this species in some numbers in Torbay, in 

 December, 1869. Gatcombe writes : " The young 

 are frequently met with during severe weather, and 

 even in comparatively mild seasons,'' but he never 

 saw a bird killed in Devon or Cornwall in adult male 

 dress until 1879, when he examined a bird killed off 

 Looe. In February, 1881, a pair were killed near 

 Plymouth, " the male in full adult plumage, very un- 

 commonly met with in the West of England " (Zool^ 

 1881, p. 198). Two Mergansers, one an adult female 

 and the other an immature bird, were shot at 

 Exmouth, in October, 1888, and are now in my 

 collection. 



SMEW. — Mergus albeUus, Linn. 



A RARE winter visitant. Montagu was well 

 acquainted with the Smew and even considered it 

 more numerous in Devon than the Goosander or 

 Merganser. Subsequent experience shows this 

 opinion to be inapplicable to the present day, what- 

 ever may have been the case at the beginning of 

 the century. Dr. Moore writes in 1837 : " Mr. 

 Comyns has a male and female shot at Exmouth. 

 Mr. Drew, Bolitho and myself have others, killed on 

 the Tamar." The late Mr. Bulteel once shot an old 



