HOODED MERGANSER. 387 



offspring, but abandons his mate as soon as incubation 

 has commenced. The affectionate mother leads her young 

 among the tall rank grasses which fill the shallow pools, 

 or the borders of creeks, and teaches them to procure 

 snails, tadpoles, and insects. On two occasions the parents 

 would not abandon the young, although I expected that 

 the noises which I made would have induced them to do 

 so ; they both followed their offspring into the net which I 

 had set for them. The young all died in two days, when 

 I restored the old birds to liberty. 



" The Hooded Mergansers which leave the United States, 

 take their departure from the first of March to the middle 

 of May ; and I am induced to believe that, probably, one- 

 third of them tarry for the purpose of breeding on the 

 margins of several of our great lakes. When migrating, 

 they fly at a great height, in small loose flocks, without 

 any regard to order. Their notes consists of a kind of 

 rough grunt, variously modulated, but by no means 

 musical, and resembling the syllables croc, croo, crook. 

 The female repeats it six or seven times in succession, 

 when she sees her young in danger. The same noise is 

 made by the male, either when courting on the water, 

 or as he passes on wing near the hole where the female is 

 laying one of her eggs." 



In the adult male the bill is dull reddish-brown ; the 

 irides yellow; head, and upper part of the neck black; 

 top of the head ornamented with a half circular crest, the 

 posterior half of which is white edged with black ; back 

 and wing-coverts black ; primaries, secondaries, rump, and 

 tail-feathers dark brown ; scapulars and tertials elongated, 

 slender, and white, edged with black ; lower part of neck 

 in front white, with the points of two crescentic bands 

 descending from the upper part of the back, and directed 



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