PLATE I 

 RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. Mergus serrator 



May 29///, 1896. The nest from which this Plate was taken was on a small 

 island in the Spey below Aviemore Station. I had information of a nest 

 on this island in 1895, and the situation was described to me very minutely. 

 Accordingly, on my next visit to Rothiemurchus I went down to the island, 

 and after a systematic search came upon the last year's nest, and not thirty 

 yards from it I saw the Merganser sitting on her eggs. She was ridiculously 

 tame, and I walked right up to her and actually put my hand below her 

 wings into the nest before she got up and ran from the nest, taking wing a 

 few yards off and alighting with a splash in a pool about fifty yards away. 

 All the time I was at the nest she swam restlessly backwards and forwards 

 uttering a harsh ' karr-karr] and sometimes flapping across the still surface 

 of the pool. 



I went back next morning and took a photograph of her on the nest ; 

 but alas! when I came to develop it on my return home the light had got 

 at it in some way, and it was quite useless. 



Although the drake Merganser is very attentive to his mate in the early 

 part of the breeding season, he does not evince any anxiety for her after she 

 has begun to sit, and is seldom seen near the nest. 



VOL. ii. 2 F 109 



