116 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



Stanton Lake all winter long. \Yhen the lake froze np they went 

 up the creek, swimming about in the big pools. No wild fowl of any 

 other kind came into the lake from NoA^ember 15 to February 22." 

 Mr. Bryant has taken merganser eggs on Stanton Lake, so the birds 

 are doubtless resident. 



The mergansers liaAe the interesting habit of fishing in small 

 bands, and their maneuvers will repay close observation. 



Eed-breasted Merganser: Mergiis serrator. — Late in October, 

 1887, Dr. Grinnell found red-breasted mergansers, with the long, 

 hairlike crests, in company with a large variety of waterfowl, abun- 

 dant on the Low^er St. Mary Lake, and Mr. Gird reports them as 

 found in spring, summer, and fall between Waterton Creek and the 



From Handbook of Birds of the Western United States, 



Fig. 21. — Red-breasted merganser. 



North Fork of the Flathead on the west and Belly River on the east 

 side of the park. Mr. F. F. Liebig has a specimen taken on Lake 

 McDonald some years ago. 



These mergansers also hunt in companies, as ISIr. E. H. Eaton 

 describes it, " sometimes advancing w^ith wide, extended front, driv- 

 ing the fish before them and diving simultaneously so that, which- 

 ever way their prey may dart, there is a serrated beak and capacious 

 gullet ready to receive them." 



Hooded ]\Ierganser: Lophodytes cuciillatus. — Mr. Stevenson re- 

 ports seeing the hooded merganser, with the white-centered, wheel- 

 shaped crest, mostly in spring and fall, in ones or twos on small 

 ponds, but Mr. Bryant says that it breeds on the Middle Fork of the 



