THE AMERICAN MERGANSER. 759 
duck cleaving the water with strong concerted strokes of his vermilion feet. 
In that limpid water the resplendent black of his head and the salmon-tinted 
sides shone almost as 1f there was nothing between us. I am almost sorry to 
add that his ruse was not successful, and that his skin now rests in an 
eastern museum. 
Not only are these Mergansers expert divers, but the sharp “teeth,” 
inclining backward as they do, are calculated to hold the most slippery 
prey. Fish caught in fair pursuit form the bulk of their food, but frogs, 
water insects, cray-fish, and other crustaceans, vary the monotony. Since 
the taking of such prey depends primarily upon unimpeded eye-sight, it 
goes without saying that these birds prefer clear waters and free course. 
Hence, they are more often found upon our rivers, even the swiftest 
mountain streams, than upon the East-side lakes and reed-grown ponds. 
It is to be feared that when the Fish Duck encounters a lusty school 
of herring or a company of young salmon he does not agree that “enough 
is as good as a feast.” An Arctic authority, Hearne, states that it de- 
vours fish in such great quantities as to be frequently obliged to disgorge 
several before it can rise from the water. It is noteworthy in this con- 
nection that the skin of the throat is unusually elastic, so that the bird 
can accommodate a large catch. Mr. Bowles once shot a female which 
had a suspiciously swollen throat. A post mortem disclosed a seven-inch 
trout, whose head was digesting comfortably, but whose tail had not yet 
found entrance into the bird’s stomach. After an especially satisfying 
meal the bird is likely to clamber ashore in some secluded spot and indulge 
in a digestive nap. On such an occasion I once got near enough to sprinkle 
salt on the gluttonous creature’s tail, but a grating pebble gave the plot 
away before I got my hands upon her. 
Like the Golden-eye and certain other ducks, this Sheldrake usually 
occupies a hollow tree or stub for a nesting site. Now and then a crevice 
in the face of a cliff does duty, and old nests of hawk or crow have been 
pressed into service. Moderate elevations are favored, but Mr. Bowles 
once found a nest near Puget Sound in a decayed fir stub at a height of 
over a hundred feet. The cavity, wherever found, is warmly lined with 
weeds, grasses, and rootlets, and plentifully supplied with down from the 
bird’s breast. The eggs are of a clear creamy, or dull buffy, tint, and 
have that “hard-oil’” finish characteristic of so many ducks’ eggs, and 
they are further polished by four weeks of incubation. The young, when 
hatched, require to be transported to the water in the maternal beak—a 
rather trying ordeal, we must presume, in the case of that tenth-story tenant 
of the fir stub. 
