294 ANATID.K. 



birds, when breeding-time is over, part company, and lose 

 acquaintance.*" The nest, according to Mr. Selby, is con- 

 structed " near to the edge of the water, of a mass of grass, 

 roots, and other materials, mixed and lined with down. It 

 is placed sometimes among stones, sometimes in long grass, 

 or under the cover of bushes, and, when the locality affords 

 them, in the stumps or hollows of decayed trees," The eggs 

 are of a uniform buff-coloured white, measuring two inches 

 and a half in length, by one inch and eight lines in breadth. 

 Six or seven young are considered a large brood, and the 

 careful mother has been seen, like the Wild Duck, to carry 

 some of her offspring, occasionally, on her back when in the 

 water, as the parent Swan is known to do. 



Mr. Hewitson, in his notes on the ornithology of Norway, 

 says, " of the Goosander we frequently observed small flocks, 

 almost entirely male birds, accompanied rarely by one or 

 two females. The females must have been breeding some- 

 where in the neighbourhood, but it was in vain that we made 

 every search for the eggs. Upon enquiry of the best in- 

 formed people, we were told that the females are never seen 

 during the summer, nor until (accompanied by their young 

 ones,) they join the male birds in the autumn." 



Professor Nilsson says the Goosander is not uncommon 

 on the lakes and rivers of Sweden ; and Mr. Dann tells me 

 that it is widely dispersed from Scona to Lapland, as far 

 as the woody districts extend ; and that it breeds at Gelli- 

 vara. Liimeus, in his tour in Lapland, describes a male 

 Goosander which had been caught in a net set for pike, near 

 Lycksele ; and Acerbi in his travels, when on the banks 

 of a river near Kardis, in Lapland, says, " the Mergiis mer- 

 ganser, instead of building a small nest, like the ducks, on 

 the banks, or among the reeds and rushes, chooses to lay 

 her eggs in the trunk of an old tree, in which time, or the 

 hand of man, has made such an excavation as she can con- 



