l8o NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



feet reddish orange. Female and immature: Head and neck reddish 

 browTi, but paler and duller than in the preceding species and more tinged 

 with cinnamon; back ashy gray; mirror and under parts white. Downy 

 young: Upper parts dark hair-brown ; spot on each side of rump and rear 

 border of wing yellowish white; cheek and under parts yellowish white; 

 sides of head and neck cinnamon; lores pale with dusky stripe above and 

 one below; lower eyelid grayish white. 



Length 20-25 inches; extent 30-34; wing 8.5-9.45; tail 4; tarsus 1.7-1.9; 

 middle toe and claw 2.6; bill 2.2-2.5; g'lpe 2.6-2.75; nostril to tip 1.65; 

 rear of nostril to lore feathers .3. The female the smaller. 



The Red-breasted merganser, Sawbill, Indian, or Pied sheldrake, as 

 this species is called, is one of the most abundant ducks along the coast 

 and on the inland waters. It occurs chiefly as a migrant, appearing after 

 the ice has disappeared from our lakes and rivers, and remaining sometimes 

 in large flocks, till late in May when they pass further north to their breeding 

 grounds. A few are known to nest in the Adirondacks, but most of the 

 mergansers of that region belong to the preceding species. The eggs are 

 laid upon the ground in a down -lined nest, carefully concealed in the grass 

 or brushwood. They are 6-12 in number, of a bufiiy white color, slightly 

 smaller than those of the American merganser. 



These mergansers are often observed to hunt in company, a large 

 flock sometimes advancing with wide extended front, driving the fish before 

 them and diving simultaneously so that whichever way their prey may 

 dart there is a serrated beak and capacious gullet ready to receive them. 

 We have often witnessed exhibitions of this habit on the waters of Lake 

 Ontario where these birds are very common during the months of April 

 and May. Occasionally a fish is captured which proves too unwieldy to 

 handle, and, becoming firmly lodged in the merganser's mouth, brings 

 death to its assailant in return for his merciless gluttony. 



Mergansers are scarcely fit for food, the flesh being rank and ill-flavored. 

 At the same time they are very wary and hard to kill, so that there is little 

 danger of their extermination, their nesting grounds being on the unfre- 

 quented lakes of the boreal zone. Unlike the preceding species this mer- 

 ganser is holarctic in distribution, in America breeding from the Northern 

 States to the arctic regions, and wintering from the Great Lakes to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



