480 BREEDING. 



both wings of the line close up, and the small fry being 

 then in a net, as it were, the birds devour them at their 

 leisure. It is from this its manner of fishing, indeed, that 

 the goosander, in parts of Sweden, has acquired the name of 

 Kor-fogel, or driving-bird. These manoeuvres are repeated 

 until such time as they have satisfied their hunger, when 

 retiring to the open water to rest and digest their food, they 

 allow themselves to be rocked by the waves. Hence this 

 bird's designation, in certain districts, of Vrak-fogel lite- 

 rally, wreck-bird, implying, that at such times it lies like a 

 wreck on the billows. 



In parts of the Swedish Skargard this curious plan of 

 fishing on the part of the goosander has been taken advantage 

 of by the inhabitants ; for seeing the way in which these 

 birds, by thus uniting their forces, drive the fish into certain 

 shallows, they place contrivances under the water to receive 

 the fugitives. The Rector Ilstrom who in the Transactions 

 of the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, 1749, gives a 

 description of these Fisk-hus, or fish-houses tells us that 

 he himself has visited such devices when fish had been 

 chased into them in the manner described, and adds : " The 

 inhabitants of my parish thus yearly obtain not only a suffi- 

 ciency of fish for their own consumption, but are enabled, 

 for moderate payment, to supply their neighbours." 



Though the goosander, as with the golden-eye, at times 

 makes its nest on the ground, amongst heaps of stones and 

 the like, it would seem to breed in preference in the hollow 

 of a tree. The nest is composed of feathers, and lined with 

 down. Unless it be robbed in the manner spoken of at 

 page 47*2 the female does not ordinarily lay more than from 

 eight to twelve eggs, which are of a dirty-yellow, or buff, 



