482 Strong, Red-breasted Merganser. [oct. 



writer landed at the islands where the nests occurred, she flew some 

 distance on being flushed, usually alighting on the water. On 

 several occasions while studying gulls in my tent which had been 

 pitched within a few rods of a merganser nest, the female parent 

 came unconcernedly near. One bird splashed in the water at the 

 shore about one-hundred feet away as though in play or taking a 

 bath. Another waddled by the tent shortly after it was pitched, 

 uttering duck-like quacks as she returned to her nest. On the 

 whole the mergansers seemed to be shy. 



In order to study the young more closely than would be possible 

 in the field, some merganser eggs were hatched under a hen. Six 

 eggs were collected on June 26. To keep them warm until they 

 could be placed under a hen, they were carried in a shoe box with 

 three nestling gulls which were also collected on this trip. Three 

 were taken from nest No. 1 which contained only five eggs on the 

 20th. This nest held nine on the 26th. The other three eggs were 

 obtained from a nest which contained nine eggs both on June 20 

 and on the 26. This nest will be referred to as No. 2. 



The six eggs were placed under a broody hen which was fortu- 

 nately available at the time on the premises where the writer was 

 boarding. On the morning of July 11, one egg from nest No. 2 

 was found hatched, and another bird appeared before noon. The 

 third egg did not develope. The writer visited the nest from which 

 these eggs were taken, the next day, July 12, when most of the 

 eggs were found hatched. Apparentlj^ the eggs under the hen had 

 made as good progress as those left in the nest with the parent 

 merganser. Two of the eggs from nest No. 1 hatched on July 25, 

 having been under the hen a few hours less than twenty-nine days. 

 This indicates a probable incubation period of about four weeks 

 for the Red-breasted Merganser. Evans ^ in his incubation-period 

 tables quotes Tiedemann as giving 26 to 28 days as the incubation 

 time for this species. (Tiedemann's work has not been accessible 

 to the writer.) 



The baby mergansers had the usual attractiveness of newly- 

 hatched precocial birds. The downy young of the Red-breasted 



1 Evans, W. On the Periods occupied by Birds in Incubation. Ibis. 1891, 

 Vol. Ill, Ser. 6, pp. 52-93. 



