RED-BREASTED MERGfcttSER. 245 



elude the sportsman or his dog", by diving- and coming 

 up at a great distance, raising" the bill only above 

 water, and dipping down again with the greatest silence. 

 The young males of a year old are often found in the 

 plumage of the female; their food consists of small 

 try, and various kinds of shell-fish. 



The red-breasted merganser is said, by Pennant, to 

 breed on Loch Mari in the county of Ross, in North 

 Britain, and also in tbe Isle of Hay. Latham informs 

 us, that it inhabits most parts of the north of Europe 

 on the continent, and as high as Iceland ; also in the 

 Russian dominions about the great rivers of Siberia, 

 and the Lake Baikal. Is said to be frequent in 

 Greenland, where it breeds on the shores. The inha- 

 bitants often take it by darts thrown at it, especially 

 in August, being then in moult. At Hudson's Bay, 

 according to Hutchins, they come in pairs about the 

 beginning of June, as soon as the ice breaks up, and 

 build soon after their arrival, chiefly on dry spots of 

 ground in the islands ; lay from eight to thirteen white 

 eggs, the size of those of a duck; the nest is made of 

 withered grass, and lined with the down of the breast. 

 The young are of a dirty brown, like young goslings. 

 In October they all depart southward to the lakes, 

 where they may have open water. 



This species is twenty-two inches in length, and 

 thirty-two in extent ; the bill is two inches and three 

 quarters in length, of the colour of bright sealing wax, 

 ridged above with dusky; the nail at the tip, large, 

 blackish, and overhanging ; both mandibles are thickly 

 serrated ; irides, red ; head, furnished with a long hairy 

 crest, which is often pendent, but occasionally erected; 

 thi?, and part of the neck, is black, glossed with green ; 

 the neck under this for two or three inches, is pure 

 white, ending in a broad space of reddish ochre spotted 

 with black, which spreads over the lower part of the 

 neck and sides of the breast ; shoulders, back, and 

 tertials, deep velvety black, the first marked with a 

 number of singular roundish spots of white ; scapulars, 

 white ; wing-coverts, mostly white, crossed by two 



