AMERICAN MERGANSER 31 



dive again every three or four feet, occasionally one 

 pursuing another ; will flutter in the water, making it 

 fly, or erect themselves at full length on the surface 

 like a penguin, and flap their wings. This party make 

 an incessant noise. Again you will see some steadily 

 tacking this way or that in the middle of the pond, and 

 often they rest there asleep with their heads in their 

 backs. They readily cross the pond, swimming from 

 this side to that. 



April 19, 1858. Rice tells me of winging a sheldrake 

 once just below Fair Haven Pond, and pursuing it in 

 a boat as it swam down the stream, till it went ashore 

 at Hubbard's Wood and crawled into a woodchuck's 

 hole about a rod from the water on a wooded bank. He 

 could see its tail and pulled it out. 



JIarch 23, 1859. As we sit there, we see coming, 

 swift and straight, northeast along the river valley, not 

 seeing us and therefore not changing his course, a male 

 goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head 

 and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle- 

 wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white 

 and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. 

 Ere long the same returns with his mate, the red- 

 throated, the male taking the lead. 



March 30, 1859. See on Walden two sheldrakes, 

 male and female, as is common. So they have for some 

 time paired. They are a hundred rods off. The male 

 the larger, with his black head and white breast, the 

 female with a red head. With my glass I see the long 

 red bills of both. They swim at first one way near to- 

 gether, then tack and swim the other, looking around 



