496 Anatidce. 



and Natural History Society by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, in the 

 year of its inauguration, 1853. Lastly, the late Major Spicer 

 wrote to me on February 5, 1881, that his keeper had that 

 morning brought him in a good specimen of a female Merganser, 

 killed on the pond at Spye Park, where he had disturbed it the 

 previous evening, but to which it returned during the night. 

 The Merganser, or ' Diving Goose/ as that name signifies, may 

 well be called serrator, or ' one who wears a saw,' so effective an 

 instrument for holding its slippery prey must be its long serrated 

 crimson beak. In Ireland it is known to the fishermen and 

 fowlers as the ' Skeld Duck/ and sometimes as ' Spear Widgeon/ 

 on account of its sharp-toothed bill. In England it is provincially 

 known as the ' Harle/ and the ' Jack-Saw/ and in Sweden it is 

 the Smd-SkraJct, ' Small Saw-bill/ One cannot but admire the 

 remarkable position of the legs of this and all the other Mergi, 

 and Colymbi as well, which, though it renders them clumsy on 

 land, to which they seldom resort, so marvellously supplies them 

 with oars and rudders in the water, where they spend their lives. 

 Both these families were called by Linna3us Compedes, because 

 they move on the ground as if ' shackled ' or ' fettered.' * Of all 

 fowl ' (says Sir R. Payne-Gallwey,) ' except perhaps the Golden- 

 Eyes, they are the most restless and wary : never quiet, always 

 swimming, diving, or flying, and to no apparent end.' I never 

 yet saw one at rest with head down and bill tucked under wing. 

 They build in cracks and crevices in the rocks and shore, but do 

 not choose rabbit holes. Ekstrom, the Norwegian naturalist, 

 says, ' The Saw- bill is the best of barometers ; if, during a partial 

 thaw in the winter, it reappears, one may be very sure there will 

 be no more severe frost that year.' In France it is Harle huppt ; 

 in Germany, Langschnabliger Sager ; in Italy, Mergo oca di 

 luwgo becco ; in Portugal, Merganso. 



204. GOOSANDER (Mergus merganser). 



This is the largest species of the genus, and perhaps the most 

 common, though none of this little group of birds are very 

 plentiful on our coasts : and very seldom does a straggler from 



