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465 



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THE HOODED MERGANSER. 



Mergus cucullatus, Linnaeus. 



There are several unauthenticated records of the occurrence of 

 this North American species in British waters, but those upon which 

 rehance can be placed are very few in number. Eyton, in his 

 'History of the Rarer British Birds' (p. 75), has described and 

 figured a Hooded Merganser which he obtained in the Menai 

 Straits, North Wales, in the winter of 1830-31. In Ireland, a 

 specimen killed in Dingle Bay, co. Kerry, about 1S40, is, or was, 

 at Chute Hall, Tralee ; an immature bird is stated by Watters 

 to have been shot in co. Meath ; and Sir R. Payne-Gallwey says 

 ('Fowler in Ireland,' p. 121) that he has had the good fortune to 

 secure no less than three. Of the latter, a pair haunted a creek 

 in Cork Harbour during the severe frost of December 1878, in 

 company with some Red-breasted Mergansers ; but though the 

 writer had ample opportunities of observing through a glass their 

 motions when feeding and flying, they were too wild to allow of 

 his approach within range, until one day when they were deserted 

 by their companions. He killed the third bird during the yet more 

 severe weather of January 18S1, on the north coast of Kerry; while 

 he heard of a solitary individual being shot near Sligo the same 

 winter, but believes it was not preserved. From what he saw of 

 those he procured, they appeared to fly faster and with a more darting 

 motion than their other congeners, though diving with equal facility ; 



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