THE SMEW, OR WHITE NUN. 357 



The length is eighteen inches, and the breadth about 

 twenty-four. The bill is narrow, very much toothed, hooked 

 at the tip, dusky on the ridge and nail, and dull red on the 

 other parts. Irides yellow, the eye being very small ; the 

 feet reddish : top of the head furnished with a large crest, 

 which can be erected or spread over the head like a hood. 

 The crest black in part as far as the eyes, the rest white with 

 black tips. Neck, and part of the back, black, the black 

 relieved in two points towards the breast ; all the rest of the 

 under part white, passing into reddish brown, finely marked 

 with black on the sides. Smaller coverts pale ash, greater 

 coverts and secondaries forming two black and two white 

 lines on the middle of the wing ; tertiaries long, hanging par- 

 tially across the wing, black, with white streaks in the centres 

 of the feathers ; primaries and tail feathers, which last are 

 twenty in number, brownish black. The female is smaller, 

 and has the crest of a pale rust colour ; the upper part of 

 the neck pale brown, and is altogether smaller. 



THE SMEW, OR WHITE NUN (Mergus albellus). 



The smew, white nun, or white merganser, is, like the 

 others, a bird of the northern climates, abundant in both 

 continents, and perhaps the most discursive of any in its 

 migrations. It is more abundant on our shores in the winter 

 than any of the other species, but it has not been known to 

 breed in the country. On the eastern part of the continent, 

 and also in America, it ranges much farther southward than 

 in our longitudes, because there the waters northward are 

 earlier, and to a greater extent closed up by the frost. The 

 consequence is, that many of the arctic birds are as common 

 in the Mediterranean as they are on the southern shores of 

 England, to which it is in very severe weather only that any 

 of the mergansers are driven in even moderate numbers. 



