GOOSANDER. 241 



floating 1 ice. It appears to live chiefly upon fish, which 

 its sharp toothed and hooked bill is admirably calculated 

 for securing. It rises from the water with considerable 

 fluttering, its wings being small and short ; but, when 

 in the air, it flies with great swiftness. It is a singular 

 circumstance, that those goosanders which are seen in 

 the Delaware and Schuylkill, in the vicinity of Phila- 

 delphia, are principally old males. 



The male goosander is twenty-six inches in length, 

 and thirty-seven inches in breadth ; the bill, to the angles 

 of the mouth, is three inches long, nearly an inch thick 

 at the base, strongly toothed on both mandibles, the upper 

 mandible with two corresponding rows of fine teeth 

 within, the lower divided to the nail, and connected by 

 a thin elastic membrane, which admits of considerable 

 expansion, to facilitate the passage of fish ; nostrils, 

 subovate, broader on the hind part ; the bill is black 

 above and below, its sides crimson ; the tongue is long, 

 pointed, furnished with a double row of papillae running 

 along the middle, and has a hairy border ; irides, golden ; 

 the frontlet, lores, area of the eyes, and throat, jet black ; 

 head, crested, tumid, and of a beautiful glossy bottle 

 green colour, extending nearly half way down the neck, 

 the remainder of which, with the exterior part of the 

 scapulars, the lesser coverts, the greater part, of the 

 secondaries, the tertials and lining of the wings, white, 

 delicately tinged with cream colour; the breast and 

 whole lower parts are of a rich cream colour; the upper 

 part of the back, and the interior scapulars, a fine glossy 

 black ; the primaries and exterior part of the secondaries, 

 with their coverts, are brownish black ; the lower part 

 of nearly all the coverts of the secondaries, white, 

 the upper part, black, forming a bar across the wing ; 

 the shoulder of the wing is brownish ash, the feathers 

 tipt with black ; the middle and lower parts of the 

 back and tail-coverts, ash, the plumage ceil red with 

 brown ; tail, brownish ash, rounded, composed of 

 eighteen feathers, and extends about three inches 

 beyond the wings ; the flanks are marked with waving, 

 finely dotted lines of ash on a white ground; tertials on 



VOL. in. <t 



