HOODED MERGANSER 343 



MERGANSERS 



Subfamily Merginae 



Hooded Merganser 



Lophodytes cucullatus 

 (lo-fod-i-tez, ku-ku-la-tus) 



Colour Plates Nos. 30 and 29. Downy Young No. 35. 



SCIENTIFIC NAME 



Lophodytes, from Greek, lophos, meaning a crest, and dutes, meaning a diver; 

 cucullatus, Latin, meaning wearing a hood. 



COLLOQUIAL NAMES 



IN GENERAL USE: Fish duck; sawbill. IN LOCAL USE: Bastard teal; bec-scie (mean- 

 ing sawbill, sometimes misspelled "bexie"); bec-scie de cypiere (cypress sawbill); 

 bec-scie du lac (lake sawbill); California fish-duck; cock-robin; cock-robin duck; 

 cottonhead; crow-duck; didapper; diver; fisher; fisher duck; fisherman; fisherman 

 duck; fishing duck; frog-duck; fuzzhead; hairy-crown; hairyhead (most common 

 name in Middle Atlantic States); hairy-crowned teal; hell-diver; hooder; hoota- 

 maganzy; little fish-duck; little sheldrake (the term sheldrake has no reference to 

 shells or molluscs, but means a drake dappled or spotted with white); little spike- 

 bill; morning-glory; mosshead; mud sheldrake; oyster duck; peaked-bill; petit 

 harle (little merganser); pheasant; pheasant duck; pickaxe; pickaxe sheldrake; 

 pied sheldrake; plongeon; pond fisher; pond sawbill; pond sheldrake; sawbill 

 diver; shagpoll; sharpy; sheldrake; smew (the name of the smallest European 

 sheldrake); snowl; spike; spikebill; spiky; strawbill; summer duck; summer shel- 

 drake; swamp sheldrake; tadpole; topknot; tree-duck; tuffle-headed duck; water 

 pheasant; whistler; wirecrown; wood duck; wood sawbill; wood sheldrake; zin-zin. 



DESCRIPTION 



ADULT MALE. WINTER PLUMAGE: Head, glossy black; forehead, usually black- 

 ish brown or occasionally greyish; crest, of hair-like feathers, white, narrowly 

 bordered with black, thin and fan-shaped; neck, glossy black; bill, black shorter 

 than head, nail across entire tip; edges of both mandibles with blunt "teeth," 

 not inclined backwards as in other mergansers, narrow, nearly cylindrical, hooked, 

 nostril in basal third (fig. 53); eye, yellow. Body. Foreback, glossy black; hindback 

 and rump, dark brown; scapulars, glossy black; chest and breast, white; sides, 

 rufous brown, finely vermiculated with dusky, richer brown at rear; belly, white, 

 mottled with dusky; two black bars from black foreback extending downwards 

 diagonally into side of chest, the forward one some times extending faintly across 

 chest to join its fellow; feet, dull yellowish olive to light brown, webs dusky. Tail 

 and upper coverts, dark sooty brown; under coverts, greyish brown, speckled with 

 whitish. Wings. Lesser coverts, dusky, tipped with grey; middle coverts, ashy grey; 



