RED-BREASTED MERGANSER 363 



schools as its chief object in life. As soon as the wireless of the sea fowl 

 tells of the spawning in some bay, all the mergansers are headed for that 

 locality until thousands are congested above the doomed fish. To see the 

 turmoil of sea birds on such occasions is to wonder that any of the her- 

 ring or their eggs survive after the first onslaught. Gulls generally are the 

 first to locate the feast. Mergansers are soon on the spot, followed by 

 murres, guillemots, and three species of loons; grebes .... and cormor- 

 ants of several species are the last to arrive. To see the large loons arriv- 

 ing, flying straight and swift, and hurling themselves into the melee, 

 causes one to winder that birds as well as herring are not killed." 



In spring the migration north is much extended; it starts in March 

 and April but it is not until the end of May that they have all left their 

 winter haunts. The summer is spent on a breeding range that extends 

 across the continent, but on the whole is more northerly than that of the 

 American Merganser. In autumn the months of greatest movement are 

 October and November, when huge flocks head south. The large flocks 

 are usually in the brown dress of the female, but they are not all females, 

 as at this time the juveniles, as well as the adult males, still partly in 

 their eclipse plumage, closely resemble the females. Winter is spent on 

 the Atlantic coast from Maine south, on the Gulf Coast and on the 

 Pacific south from British Columbia. Certain numbers winter on the 

 Great Lakes but there they are not as plentiful as the American Mer- 

 ganser. 



