228 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



breasted merganser is recorded by Mr. Gurney in the 

 "Zoologist" (p. 4252). To all appearance it was a 

 young male bird beginning to assume the adult dress, 

 but upon dissection Mr. Gurney found it to be a female, 

 and without any signs of either disease or exhaustion 

 of the ovarium. 



Mr. J. H. Gurney tells me that in the winter of 1845 

 he had an opportunity of tasting the flesh of an old 

 male red-breasted merganser, and that he found it well 

 flavoured, and not at all fishy. 



This merganser breeds regularly in many parts of 

 Scotland, where, however, it is very much disliked on 

 account of its fish-eating habits, and is accordingly in 

 many places persecuted. Its comparative rarity of late 

 years in Norfolk may perhaps be thereby accounted for. 



The HOODED MERGANSER (Mergus cucullatus, Linn.), 

 a North American species, has until recently always 

 been accorded a place in the list of Norfolk birds, and 

 that without hesitation, on the strength of an undoubted 

 specimen of Mergus cucullatus, sent by Mr. J. W. Elton to 

 Selby, who informed him that it was killed at Yarmouth 

 in the winter of 1829. The bird in question is still in 

 the collection at Twizell with Elton's name upon it, 

 but there are circumstances which render the origin of 

 the specimen doubtful ; and it has been expunged from 

 all the county lists published since 1877. Full reasons for 

 this step will be found in a foot-note appended to a copy 

 of the original letter from Elton to Selby, accompany- 

 ing the bird, and printed in the " Trans, of the Norfolk 

 and Norwich Naturalists' Society " (ii., p. 408). It is only 

 right, however, to mention that there is a second candi- 

 date for insertion in the list of Norfolk birds. In Neville 

 Wood's "Naturalist" (vol. iii., p. 413) for 1838, is a paper 

 by the late Edward Blyth, entitled " Notice of Eare Birds 

 obtained during the Winter of 1837-8," in which he 

 writes as follows : " Mr. Hoy informs me that a beau- 

 tiful male hooded merganser (Mergus cucullatus), in 

 thoroughly mature plumage, has been secured in the 

 county of Norfolk, being the first known instance of 

 this bird occurring in its adult garb in Britain." In 



