156 ANATIDAG 
Nest.—The nest is generally situated on marine or fresh- 
water islands, sometimes on the mainland, and always near 
water ; it is as a rule well concealed amid coarse herbage, 
such as tall grasses, nettles, scrub, or meadow-sweet ; or it 
is sometimes built in tangled brushwood, under heather- 
tufts, or in the recess of an overhanging bank. But, on 
the other hand, I have found this bird nesting in quite 
exposed situations. Hor example, on an island in Lough 
Sheelin, co. Cavan, I found a nest built in a shallow 
recess between a few rocks, with no vegetation to hide 
the sitting-bird. 
The nest is formed of dry grass, weeds, and small bits of 
twigs, and is lined with down. The eggs, eight to twelve in 
number, are of a light muddy yellowish-brown, slightly 
tinged in some instances with green. Incubation takes 
place about the beginning of June. 
In the north-west of Scotland, including the island- 
groups, as well as in Ireland, this bird is a common nesting- 
species ; in fact, in Ireland, 1¢ is one of the most numerous 
of our resident Ducks, though far from being as abundant 
as the Mallard (Ussher). 
Geographical distribution.—Abroad, the Red-breasted 
Merganser nests in Temperate and Sub-arctic Kurope, Asia 
and North America, migrating in the winter to the waters 
of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, eastward as far as 
Japan, and westward along the Atlantic sea-board to the 
Bermudas. 
DESCRIPTIYE CHARACTERS. 
PLUMAGE. Adult male nuptial.—Head, crest (the plumes 
of which are much longer and more filamentous than those 
of the Goosander), and upper neck, glossy greenish-black ; 
lower neck, white, intersected behind by a black line con- 
tinuous with that of the back; upper breast and lower 
neck, reddish-brown, streaked with black; lower - breast 
and abdomen, white; flanks, upper and under tail-coverts, 
finely pencilled with grey; inner, scapulars, black; outer 
ones, white; wing-coverts, chiefly white, barred across with 
narrow black lines; primaries and tail, brownish-black ; at 
the bend of the wing is an ornamental tuft of white 
feathers, margined with black. 
Adult male, post-nuptial or eclipse. — Somewhat re- 
