DUCKS. 163 



next to be mentioned. One was shot in the Holme 

 Meadows, January 1866; a male and female in the 

 Fleet, December 14, 1874 ; three seen and one killed 

 at Lodmoor, December 3, 1872; two more were 

 shot on the Wareham river during the same winter ; 

 one killed at Hyde in the collection of Mr. C. Rad- 

 clyffe ; and a male and female shot in Poole harbour, 

 December 1882. 



EED-BBEASTED MEBGA^SER. Mergus xrrator, L. 



Yarrett, iv. p. 494 ; Harting, p. 67 ; Dresser, vi p. 693 ; See- 

 bohm, iii. p. 629 ; Ibis Lift, p. 136 ; Pidienetfs Lift, p. 19. 



Commoner a good deal than the last-named, the 

 Red-breasted Merganser is a regular winter visi- 

 tant. Pulteney has included it in his catalogue as 

 having been "shot in the Stour, 1776, and in 

 several other places." One was obtained at Ens- 

 bury in the winter of 1846; two at Poole in the 

 winter of 1872-73 ; in February 1870 Mr. Frederick 

 Fane saw a number on the Avon, five or six of 

 which were males ; one, a female, was shot at Hyde 

 in December 1878 ; a male and a female in Poole 

 harbour, December 1882. Mr. Pike says that this 

 bird arrives in November in flocks, a hundred or 

 more being seen together in the harbours. " They 

 are very wary and are rarely shot. When they get 

 into a narrow channel and commence diving for fish, 

 the gulls hover over them in a very excited manner, 

 occasionally darting down to the surface of the water. 

 Probably the advent of so many Mergansers diving 



