THE MERGANSER. 247 



gull or an octogenarian guillemot. He looked at us with a smile, 

 in which we thought we detected a considerable shade of incredu- 

 lity, and we do believe that the thought passed through his mind 

 at that moment that we only spoke so disparagingly of the bird 

 because we wanted to get hold of it ourselves, either by its being 

 given to us as a present, or for the smallest possible money pay- 

 ment, and then what a jolly feed we should have at the expense of 

 his ornithological ignorance and juvenile simplicity ! Perhaps we 

 do him injustice ; but, at all events, he carried the bird away with 

 him, observing that he " would try it at any rate." We met his 

 sister a day or two afterwards, and on inquiring if they had cooked 

 the " wild duck," and how they liked it, we confess that it 

 was with an inward chuckle of intense satisfaction that we 

 listened as she told us that, after having duly boiled and cooked it 

 aecundum artem, until it ought to have been good and tender, it 

 turned out to be so rank, and fishy, and tough, that no one could 

 eat a morsel of it, and it had to be thrown into the dinner refuse 

 basket as worthless ! These birds, though necessarily hardy, and 

 able to outlive a vast amount of cold and storm, are exceedingly 

 fond of still water, rarely resting or fishing when there is any 

 surface disturbance beyond a slight ripple ; and hence it is that 

 you so seldom meet with them elsewhere than in the most 

 sheltered bays, creeks, and estuaries, where the water is least liable 

 to the surface turmoil and commotion of a storm. The finest 

 stuffed specimen of the Merganser we ever saw is at Achnacarry 

 Castle, Lochiel's seat in Lochaber. 



"We have said above that the winter has thus far been almost 

 unprecedentedly open and mild, by which we mean only that the 

 temperature throughout has been unusually high, not, by any 

 nfeans, that it has been calm. The very contrary is the case. It 

 has been one continued storm, with an occasional breathing time, 

 so to speak, of a fine day at rare intervals, for upwards of eight 



