SCO TERSDI VING-D UCKS. 



297 



broadly lobed. The Scoters (Fuligulince) have the bill more or less 

 depressed and the tail-feathers not stiffened. A large number of genera 

 is represented in this sub-family, which includes such 

 forms as the Pochards (Nyroca), the Scaups (Fidiqula), ,_, _. . 

 the Steamer Ducks (Tachyeres), the Golden -Eyes The Diving Ducks, 

 (Clangula), the Long-tailed Ducks (Harelda), the Harle- 

 quins (Cosmonetta), the Scoters (CfcWemia), and the Eiders (Somateria), 

 and their allies. They are mostly sea-ducks, and some of them, like the 

 Harlequin Duck and Steller's Eider (Heniconetta stelleri) are very handsome 

 birds. The stiff-tailed Diving Ducks (sub-family Erismaturince) differ from 

 the Fuligulince in their narrow tail-feathers, which are much stiffened. Only 

 four genera are admitted, Thalassiornis, Nomonyx, Erismatura, and 

 Biziura. The latter is a curious Australian form, with a pendant lobe on 

 the chin, and twenty-four tail-feathers. 



In these birds the tail is long and stiffened, and the general look of the 

 birds is very much like that of the Mergansers, but they 

 have no serrations on the edges of the mandibles. They The Torrent- 

 are found only in the Andes from Ecuador to Chili, fre- Ducks-Sub-family 

 quenting the torrents of the high mountains, and being Merganettina. 

 very difficult of observation. 



la this last sub-family we find only the Smew (Mergus 'albellus) and the 

 Mergansers (Lophodytes and Merganser). In the latter birds the tooth-like 

 serrations are very different from those of any other of 

 the Ducks, being strongly inclined backwards at the tips. The Mergansers. 

 These are not, however, real teeth, though they have the Sub-family 



appearance of so being, but are merely serrations along Mergina. 



the edge of the mandible, so that in the skeleton there is 

 no appearance of any indentation on the bone of the bill. Thus they are 

 very different birds from the 

 extinct Hesperornis, which had 

 real teeth, though they are inter- 

 esting as being the nearest ap- 

 proach which we can show at the 

 present day to the toothed birds 

 of ancient times. 



Seven species of the genus 

 Merganser are known, and they 

 are found in the Pakearctic and 

 Nearctic regions, but are absent 

 in the Ethiopian and the greater 

 part of the Indian Region. One 

 species is isolated in the Auckland 

 Islands, viz , M. australis, and 

 another in South -Eastern Brazil, 

 M. brasiliamis. The Red-breasted 



Fig. 53. THE RED BREASTED MKRGAKSER 

 (Merganser serrator). 



Merganser is smaller than the Goosander (M. merganser) , and nests in Scotland 

 and Ireland. Like the other Mergansers it is an expert diver, and it feeds 

 principally on fish. On this account they are somewhat persecuted. 



These birds, often called the Steganopodes, have the hind toe or hallux 

 united to the second toe by a web, so that all four toes are webbed. All 

 the Pelecanoid birds have the palate bridged or "desmognathous," and there 

 are no basipterygoid processes in the palate. There are five sub-orders, viz., 



