THE MERGANSERS 2123 



the tail, which is rather long and graduated, and may contain as many as twenty- 

 four feathers. All are said to be expert divers, and in flight and habits some re- 

 semble more a grebe than a duck. Southern Europe, North Africa, and parts of 

 Asia are the home of the white- faced stiff-tailed duck (E. leucocephala} , distinguished 

 by the breadth and size of the nail at the end of the beak. In other species, such 

 as E. rubida, of North, and the ferruginous stiff-tailed duck (E. ferrugmea) of 

 South America, as well as in the Australian E. australis, the nail is very small and 

 narrow. The great musk duck (Biziura lobata} of Australia constitutes a separate 

 genus, characterized by the marked superiority in the size of the male over the 

 female, and the presence of a large lobe of skin depending from the chin of the 

 former sex. Here also may be mentioned the steamer duck ( Tachyeres cinereus) of 

 the Falkland islands and Patagonia. 



Under the general designation of mergansers may be included a 

 group of diving and fish-eating birds, which differ from the other 

 members of the family in the extreme narrowness of their beaks, 

 although resembling the diving ducks in the structure of their feet. The beak, 

 which may be either longer or shorter than the head, is, in addition to its narrow- 

 ness, straight and slender, furnished on its edges with saw-like lamellae, and ter- 

 minates in a conspicuous hooked nail; the longitudinally-elliptical nostrils being 

 lateral and placed near the middle of its length. The wings are of moderate length, 

 with the first and second quills the longest; and the relatively-short legs are placed 

 somewhat backwardly on the body. Of the five species of mergansers, four are in- 

 habitants of the northern portions of both Hemispheres, migrating southward in 

 winter, while the fifth (Mergus australis) is from the Aucklands. All the four 

 northern species are met with in the British Islands, although two are but casual 

 visitants, and only one is a regular breeder. 



The goosander (M. merganser) , which is a species occasionally breeding in 

 Britain, belongs to a group in which the beak is longer than the head, and has long 

 recurved serrations; the metatarsus being rather long, and a depressed and pointed 

 crest present in both sexes. A handsomely -colored bird, the adult male goosander in 

 its breeding plumage is characterized by its vermilion beak and the shining greenish 

 black head and upper neck, as well as by the lower neck and under parts being 

 whitish, with a rosy tinge on the breast. The upper part of the back and scapu- 

 lars are black, as are the primaries; the lower back, tail coverts, and tail feathers 

 are ashy gray, and the point of the wing and wing coverts are white. In the female 

 the head and upper neck are pale chestnut, and the upper parts and wings, except 

 the white secondaries, mainly gray. In length the male varies from twenty-five to 

 twenty-eight inches. The goosander ranges over the northern portions of the Old 

 World, migrating in winter to the northern shores of the Mediterranean, India, and 

 Japan, and being replaced in North America by a variety. Nearly allied is the red- 

 breasted merganser (M. serrator), which has a circumpolar distribution, and breeds 

 regularly in Scotland and Ireland. It is a rather smaller bird than the goosander, 

 the male having the head and upper neck greenish black, the middle of the neck 

 (except a dark streak behind) white, the lower neck and upper breast buff streaked 

 with black, the white feathers on the sides of the breast bordered with black, and 



