THE REDBREASTED MERGANSER. 119 



piscivorous habits, are unfit for food, but offer from 

 time to time such tempting shots that it is not in 

 mortal to pass them by. Many collectors will, how- 

 ever, be delighted to get a couple of adult birds, as 

 they are very beautiful, and, though tolerably com- 

 mon, are not easily obtainable. The handsome 

 black-and-white pied males are in small proportion 

 to the others, perhaps one in twenty. Country 

 fellows and poor shooters, by waiting for hours 

 behind rocks and shelters, kill these birds as they 

 dive along a deep shore in search of food. They 

 are then disposed of with more worthy fowl to the 

 dealers, who resell them in towns to ignorant folk 

 as extra dainties, by reason, I presume, of their 

 quaint aspect. The wildfowl of that particular 

 neighbourhood are then voted rank and fishy, and 

 considered to be not worth powder and shot ; for he 

 who has once tasted Merganser will never care to 

 do so again. They prey exclusively on fish, and 

 Colonel Cooper tells me that on the Sligo estuaries, 

 where they are very common, they are considered 

 quite as destructive to young salmon as are Cormo- 

 rants. They breed every year on the rushy islands 

 of Lough Derg, Lough Ree (Upper Shannon), 

 Lough Corrib, Lough Erne, and in several spots 

 round the coast. They build in cracks and crevices 

 in the rocks and shore, but I never saw them choose 

 rabbit-holes, like the Shelduck, though these might 

 be near and convenient. 



Mr. Pike tells me they nest annually on a small 

 rocky island in the sound of Achill, which belongs 

 to him ; and that he has shot the flappers swimming 

 with the old birds. He adds that the female lays 



