Birds of Pennsylvania. 7 



principally as a winter visitant. In Pennsylvania this bird is not 

 an uncommon sojourner about our larger streams, etc , from late in 

 October until early in April. The Messrs. Baird, in their list of 1844, 

 mention this bird as a native of Perry county, Pennsylvania; Dr. 

 Turnbull, writing in 1869, also says that a few breed in east Pennsyl- 

 vania. The nest and eggs are described by Audubon, as follows : '• In 

 Labrador, as well as in several parts of the United States, where I 

 have found the nests, they were placed within a very short distance 

 of the margins of fresh-water ponds, among rank grasses and sedges 

 or beneath low bushes. * * * The nest is made of dry weeds and 

 mosses of various kinds, and is warmly lined with down from the 

 breast of the female bird, for the male leaves her as soon as she has 

 completed the laying of the eggs, the number of which I have never 

 found to exceed ten, they being more frequently six or eight. It is a 

 very remarkable fact that the eggs in this family of birds are usually 

 even in number, whereas in most land birds they are odd. * * * 

 The eggs resemble in form those of the domestic fowl, and are of a 

 uniform plain, dull yellowish cream-color." 



Genus LOPHODYTES. Reichenbach. 

 131. Liophodytes cucuUatus (Linn.). 



Hooded Merganser. 



Description. {Plate S.) 



Head with an elongated, compressed, semicircular crest; anterior extremity of 

 nostril reaching not quite as far as the middle of commissure ; frontal feathers ex- 

 tending nearly as far as half the distance from lateral feathers to nostril ; the latter 

 much beyond the feathers on side of lower mandible ; bill shorter than head. 



Male. — Bill black ; head, neck and back black ; under parts and center of crest 

 Avhite ; sides chestnut-brown, barred with black ; white anterior to the wing, crossed 

 by two black crescents ; lesser coverts gray ; white speculum with a basal and me- 

 dian black bar; black tertials streaked centrally with white; iris yellow. 



Female. — Witli a shorter and more pointed crest ; the head and neck reddish- 

 brown ; the back without pure-black ; the sides without transverse bars; the white 

 of wings less extended. 



Length, 17.50 inches ; wing, 7.90; tarsus, 1.20; commissure, 1.98 inches. 



Hab. — North America generally, south to Mexico and Cuba, breeding nearly 

 throughout its range. 



This handsome bird, the smallest of all the Mergansers, is found 

 generally throughout North America. Nuttall remarks that in winter 

 it migrates as far south as Mexico. The Hooded Merganser breeds in 

 various portions of the United States, and also far northward. Dr. 

 Coues (Birds of the Northwest) states that it "breeds in northern 

 Dakota and also on the Upper Missouri and Milk rivers." I have 

 seen eggs of this bird which were labeled " Maine," and I am informed 

 that young, but a few days old, have been taken in New York State. 



