RED-BREASTED MERGANSER 357 



Red-Breasted Merganser 



Mergus serrator 

 (me'r-gus, ser-a-tor) 



Colour Plates Nos. 28 and 29. Downy Young No. 35. 



SCIENTIFIC NAME 



Mergus, Latin, meaning a diver; serrator, Latin, meaning a sawyer (refer- 

 ring to the so-called "teeth"). 



COLLOQUIAL NAMES 



IN GENERAL USE: Fish duck; sawbill. IN LOCAL USE: Bec-scie (meaning saw- 

 bill, simetimes misspelled "bexie"); bec-scie de mer (sea sawbill); common saw- 

 bill; common sheldrake (the term sheldrake has no reference to shells or mol- 

 luscs, but means a drake dappled or spotted with white); diver; fis; fisher; fisher 

 duck; fisherman; fisherman duck; fishing duck; fuzzyhead; garbill; garbill duck; 

 hairycrown; hairy-crowned fisherman; hairyhead; Indian sheldrake; jack; Long 

 Island sheldrake; Mississippi buck; pheasant; pheasant sheldrake; pied shel- 

 drake; red-breasted fish-duck; robin; salt-water sheldrake; sea bec-scie; sea diver; 

 sea sawbill; sea-robin; sheldrake; shelduck; shellbird; Spanish drake; spring buck; 

 spring sheldrake; stud-duck; whistler. 



DESCRIPTION 



ADULT MALE. WINTER PLUMAGE: Head and upper neck, black, glossed 

 with green on side of head; neck, with white collar, incomplete behind; lower 

 neck, reddish brown mottled with black; hindneck, with black stripe from black 

 head to upper back; crest, black, double-pointed and scraggly, of very narrow 

 feathers; bill (fig. 54), carmine red, dusky along ridge, narrow, long and nearly 

 cylindrical; nail, across entire tip, black; nostril, in basal third; edges of upper 

 and lower mandibles with sharp -pointed "teeth" sloping backward; feathering 

 of upper mandible extends forward to a sharp angle and further forward than 

 that of lower mandible; inside of mouth, orange yellow; eye, deep red. Body. 

 Foreback, black; hindback and rump, brownish grey, finely barred and speckled 

 with black; scapulars, inner ones black, outer ones white, some marked with 

 black; upper chest, reddish brown, mottled with black; sides, white, finely ver- 

 miculated with black; a group of black-and-white lengthened-feathers on side 

 cover bend of folded wing, and show as a series of black and white stripes or 

 spots; breast, white, with salmon-pink tinge which fades to white shortly after 

 death; belly, white, sometimes faintly marked with dusky; feet, red. Tail, ashy 

 grey, outer webs of outer feathers flecked with white; upper coverts, light grey, 

 barred with black; under coverts, white, longer ones faintly flecked with grey at 

 tips. Wings. Lesser coverts, those near edge of wing, black or brownish black, 

 others, white; middle coverts, white; greater coverts, basally black, with broad 

 white tips, outer ones black; secondaries, white, basally black, outer ones black; 

 long inner secondaries, white, narrowly margined with black on outer webs; 

 (black bases of greater coverts and secondaries show as two narrow diagonal 

 black lines on folded wing); primaries, slaty brown, darker at tips and on outer 

 webs; tertials, white, with black margins on outer webs, inner tertials black; 

 lining, brownish grey and white; axillars, white. 



ECLIPSE PLUMAGE: The moult into eclipse plumage commences in spring 

 and is complete in August, the male then closely resembles the female except 

 that the wing retains the male pattern. 



