DECEMBER 311 



vermilion beak and feet retain their brilliancy. In this 

 disguise he passes with the uninitiated as a different bird, 

 and is known as the dun diver. But among all the gay 

 and charming creatures that gladden the banks of a 

 Highland salmon river in spring, there is none, if it be 

 not a flight of wild swans, to compare with the male 

 goosander as he wings his arrowy course under a March 

 sun. 



There are two other British species of Mergus, the 

 merganser (M. serratus), commonly called the sawbill, 

 and the smew (M. albellus), a lovely creature which 

 seldom comes further inland than the tides will carry it. 

 The smew is smaller than the other two species ; its bill, 

 legs, and feet, instead of being scarlet or orange, are lead- 

 coloured. The breeding plumage of the male is snowy 

 white, fantastically streaked and slashed with intense 

 black, and delicately laced with black on the flanks. 



The other Mergus, the sawbill, is known to every 

 salmon-fisher as one of the deadliest foes to smolts and 

 fry. The goosander is every whit as bad. Lithest of 

 swimmers, deftest of divers, the mischief wrought by 

 these birds when the young salmon are descending to 

 the sea is incalculable. But never until this autumn 

 (1904) did I suspect them of plundering spawning-beds. 

 Mr. Sykes of Borrobel on the Helmsdale shot a sawbill 

 which, on being opened, was found to contain two pounds 

 weight of trout ova. 



I bear this testimony with a sad heart, for the swift 

 flight of the merganser up and down the river, and, later 

 in the season, the splashing scuffle of the young in their 

 anxious mother's wake, are associated in memory with 

 many a day of wild sport. 



