MERGUS MERGANSER. 633 
Brown at Dalwhinnie :—“I got a nest too for the first time this year of the 
Dun Diver. It was in a hole in a tree, and had ten eggs, and I had the bird 
in my hand.” The next year this man was employed by Mr. Harvie-Brown 
and Capt. Feilden, with the permission of the lessee of the shooting, to collect 
eges for them. No directions were given as to Ducks’ eggs or down, as 
sufficient importance had not been attached to MacGregor’s statement of 1870; 
but in May 1871 he wrote to Mr. Harvie-Brown, at the time in Norway, that 
he had many other eggs, some Dun Divers’, and they were accordingly sent to 
Dunipace. 
On Mr. Harvie-Brown’s return thither he carefully compared them with 
others, and came to the conclusion that they could scarcely be other than 
Goosanders’, a conclusion with which Mr. Alston also agreed. Meanwhile 
MacGregor wrote, in answer to enquiries, that the bird was a large light-grey 
bird, white underneath with a dark brown crest running nearly halfway down 
the long neck, but the feathers of the crest were not long. The nest was in 
the hollow of an old tree, and the time about the 20th of May. He found the 
nest by the side of the loch, and whenever the bird flew off the nest it dived 
into the water, and could not be seen again. Mr. Harvie-Brown then wrote 
to MacGregor asking him to search the nest for any of the down, even for a 
single spray, that might remain. This he did, though it was nine miles from 
where he lived, with the result that he obtained some down and a single 
feather, from a hole at the bottom of the tree—a rowan, which branched into 
two about seven or nine feet from the ground, as was afterwards ascertained 
from him. The feather and down were sent for examination to Mr. Dresser, 
who confirmed Mr. Harvie-Brown’s opinion as to their belonging to this 
species, congratulating him on the first-recorded nest of Mergus merganser in 
Scotland. MacGregor afterwards removed to Kingussie, where he died. } 
[§ 5890. One.— Loch Erricht, 19 May, 1876. From 
Mr. Dresser. 
On the 27th of May, 1876, Mr. Dresser wrote to me from Dunipace House, 
where he was staying with Mr. Harvie-Brown, that they had been together in 
the Highlands, “and you will be glad to hear that we found the Goosander 
breeding on Loch Erricht in the same place that it bred in before [§ 5889). 
We went to takg the eggs (twelve), but a shepherd-lad had been before us and 
had got them, as we ascertained by enquiring at the only cottage within reach. 
He had thrown them into the loch, but we recovered four, and the nest, which 
had not been destroyed, we also took out and have it here. We saw both 
birds there also, and the shepherd says they have bred at the same place for 
several years, and that the eggs are always destroyed. It also breeds on Loch 
Laggan, but we did not get the nest there.” Mr, Dresser not many days 
after sent me this ege. } 
