GOOSANDER. 239 



ber. Of their particular place, and manner of breeding, 

 we have no account. Mr Pennant observes, that they 

 continue the whole year in the Orkneys j and have been 

 shot in the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, 

 in summer. They are also found in Iceland and Green- 

 land, and are said to breed there ; some asserting that 

 they build on trees ; others, that they make their nests 

 among the rocks. 



The male of this species is twenty-six inches in length, 

 and three feet three inches in extent ; the bill, three inches 

 long, and nearly one inch thick at the base, serrated 

 on both mandibles; the upper overhanging at the tip, 

 where each is furnished with a large nail; the ridge of 

 the bill is black ; the sides, crimson red ; irides, red ; 

 head, crested, tumid, and of a black colour glossed with 

 green, which extends nearly half way down the neck, 

 the rest of which, with the breast and belly, are white, 

 tinged with a delicate yellowish cream ; back, and 

 adjoining scapulars, black ; primaries, and shoulder of 

 the wing, brownish black ; exterior part of the scapulars, 

 lesser covert's, and tertials, white ; secondaries, neatly 

 edged with black ; greater coverts, white ; their upper 

 halves, black, forming a bar on the wing; rest of the 

 upper parts, and tail, brownish ash; legs and feet, the 

 colour of red sealing wax ; flanks, marked with fine 

 semicircular dotted lines of deep brown ; the tail extends 

 about three inches beyond the wings. 



This description was taken from a full plumaged 

 male. The young males, which are generally much 

 more numerous than the old ones, so exactly resemble 

 the females in their plumage for at least the first, and 

 part of the second year, as scarcely to be distinguished 

 from them ; and, what is somewhat singular, the crests 

 of these and of the females are actually longer than 

 those of the full grown male, though thinner towards 

 its extremities. These circumstances have induced 

 some late ornithologists to consider them as two 

 different species, the young, or female, having been 

 called the dun diver. By this arrangement, they have 

 entirely deprived the goosander of his female; for, in 



