SPECIES 4. MERGUS CUCULLATUS. 

 HOODED MERGANSER. 



[Plate LXIX. Fig. 1.] 



L'Harle hupe de Virginie, BRISS. vi, p. 258. 8. PL EnL 935, 

 male, 936 female. L'Harle couronne, BUFF, viu, p. 280. 

 Round crested Duck. KDVV. ^,360. CATETB. i, pi. 94. -Arct. 

 Zool. JVo. 467. LATH. Syn. 10. p. 426. PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 

 2930. 



THIS species on the seacoast is usually called the Hairy head. 

 They are more common however along our lakes and fresh wa- 

 ter rivers than near the sea; tracing up creeks, and visiting mill 

 ponds, diving perpetually for their food. In the creeks and 

 rivers of the southern states they are very frequently seen dur- 

 ing the winter. Like the Red breasted they are migratory, 

 the manners, food, and places of resort of both being very much 

 alike. 



The Hooded Merganser is eighteen inches in length, and two 

 feet in extent; bill blackish red, narrow, thickly toothed, and 

 furnished with a projecting nail at the extremity; the head is 

 ornamented with a large circular crest, which the bird has the 

 faculty of raising or depressing at pleasure; the fore part of this, 

 as far as the eye, is black, thence to the hind head white and 

 elegantly tiptwith black; it is composed of two separate rows 

 of feathers, radiating from each side of the head, and which 

 may be easily divided by the hand; irides golden; eye very small; 

 neck black, which spreads to and over the back; part of the 

 lesser wing coverts very pale ash, under which the greater co- 

 verts and secondaries form four alternate bars of black and 

 white, tertials long, black, and streaked down the middle with 



