106 GOOSANDER. 
formly takes wing on your approach to the river, the female 
rarely or never does so, but with a hoarse and as it were 
suppressed kind of croaking, makes off for the opposite side, 
sunk deeply in the water, and hurrying rapidly down the 
stream. Should she be surprised unexpectedly, or pressed more 
hardly and perseveringly than usual, she finally dives, makes 
her way rapidly under the water, and emerges silently at a 
very considerable distance from the spot where she went down. 
The male, on the contrary, although he gets upon wing with 
apparent difiiculty, moving at first like a stone skimming the 
surface of the water, ascends, nevertheless, to a great elevation 
in the air, describing a circle of extended diameter, and only 
alighting again after more evolutions than one, and when the 
danger is apparently over.’ They are wild and wary birds. 
On the land they are but ungainly in their movements, 
but can, nevertheless, proceed in a rapid manner, if occasion 
require. Swimming and diving are their most natural occu- 
pations, and these “they perform with ease and grace. They 
swim low in the water. Meyer adds, ‘when the Goosander 
dives in open water, it re-appears generally from fifty to sixty 
yards from the spot of its disappearance; but in places where 
there is only a small opening in the ice, it repeatedly comes 
up in the same place. The bird is said to remain frequently 
under water for two minutes, and it has been seen to walk 
about at the bottom in pursuit of food.’ They fly with great 
ease, and in a rapid manner, and can proceed for a considerable 
distance. 
They feed on fish and the smaller reptiles. 
The eall-note of the Goosander resembles the word ‘earrr, 
earrr, and the young utter a piping cry while yet unfledged. 
The Goosander builds on small islands in fresh-water iochs 
in the neighbourhood of the sea, and near the water’s edge. 
The nest, which is placed under the cover of bushes, in 
long grass, among stones, or in the hollow of the stump of 
a decayed tree, is large altogether, being raised to a height 
of seven or eight inches, on a mass of dead weeds, but the 
inner and more finished part is only about seven inches 
and a half across, and four in depth. It is composed of dry 
grass and small roots, rather neatly twined together, and lined 
with the down of the bird. 
The eggs, of a long and oval shape, are from four to six, 
seven, or eight, and, Yarrell says, ten or fourteen, in number, 
or more, though rarely; if removed from the nest, as many 
