36 WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 
Europe, Central Asia, China, and Northern India. 
With us it is fairly common in the Punjab, and occurs 
also in Sind, Northern Guzerat, the North-West Prov- 
inces, and Oudh. It has also been recorded from 
Cuttack, and Dr. Blanford has met with it near Rani- 
ganj in Bengal, but it has not been observed further east, 
nor in Southern India. 
This is a particularly neat-looking and trimly-built 
little bird, the most active and vigorous of all our 
wildfowl. While, as one might expect from its build, a 
splendid diver, it, as would hardly be guessed from its 
small wings and large feet, rises readily and flies easily, 
and gets about nimbly enough on land, where, however, 
it seems to be very rarely seen in a wild state—I judge 
from captives in the London Zoo. It builds in holes 
in trees, laying about half-a-dozen very polished creamy 
white eggs. It is found in India in flocks, and most ot 
the birds seen there are immature. The flesh 1s said to 
be very bad indeed, it being, according to Pallas, 
‘* pisculentissima.’’ 
The Scaled Merganser. 
Merganser squamatus, SALVADORI, Brit. Mus. Cat., Birds, 
Vol. XXVII, p. 478. 
This little-known Chinese species is to some extent inter- 
mediate between the GOOSANDER and RED-BREASTED MERGAN- 
SER, which it closely resembles in general appearance. The 
male, however, is readily distinguishable from either species 
by having the black of the head continued down to join that 
of the upper back, and by the lower black and the flanks being 
marked with black concentric lines on a white ground, giving 
a scaly effect. The breast and abdomen are white witha 
salmon flush in the living bird, as in the Goosander. The 
crest, however, is double, as in the RED-BREASTED species, 
and there are also two black bars across the white of the 
wing. 
The female is very similar to the female Goosander, but can be 
recognized by the double crest. 
In size this species is very like the Goosander, the male being 
two feet long, “with? the: bill vabeut >) two and-a-half 
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