1912 J Strong, Red-breasted Merganser. 483 



Merganser have been described by Ridgway ^ as follows : " Above, 

 hair-brown, the posterior border of each wing, and a large spot 

 on each side of the rump, yellowish white; lower parts including 

 the malar region, yellowish white; side of head and neck reddish 

 cinnamon, paler on the lores, which are bordered above by a dusky 

 stripe running backward to the anterior angle of the eye, and below 

 by a dark brown, rather indistinct rictal stripe; lower eyelid 

 white." In place of the term reddish cinnamon we may substitute 

 dull or broken shades of orange-yellow which pass over into light 

 tints of this color. The bill and feet are mostly varying shades 

 and tints of olive or a very much "broken" yellow. 



During the first few days and especially on the first day, the down 

 feathers are more or less bristly as their barbs are held together 

 very frequently by feather-germ material. The soft fluffiness 

 which is characteristic of a newly-hatched chick does not appear 

 very fully until a few days later. Nestlings hatched by the parent 

 itself in the field showed the same bristly appearance. 



Within a few hours after hatching, the young mergansers became 

 quite active, and the two hatched on July 11, were seen in the 

 late afternoon of that day sitting on top of the hen's back, a location 

 they seemed to attain with little trouble. Cory^ observed a 

 female merganser bearing a weak nestling on her back and wrote 

 "He scrambled upon her back and nestled snugly down behind 

 her neck. . . .away she went. . . .followed by her brood." 



On the next day, the little birds were still more active, and they 

 began to jump towards the upper edge of the box in which the nest 

 was placed. They were also able to move rapidly over the ground, 

 though apparently not yet able to stand on their feet. Locomotion 

 was accomplished by a peculiar wriggling movement of the whole 

 body prostrate on the ground. These movements always suggested 

 those of a snake. When nest No. 2 was visited on July 12, the 

 little mergansers, though apparently not more than a day old and 

 perhaps younger, were very wild; and they were caught with 

 difficulty in the tangle of weeds and brush about their nest. One 

 of these birds was captured and taken home to the hen with her 

 two charges. This third bird appears in the figure which shows 



1 Ridgway, R. The Ornithology of Illinois. 



2 Cory, C. B. A Naturalist in the Magdalen Islands, p. 72. 



