£be Marbler 7 



dacks. Like all fish ducks it has a long, sharp bill which is serrated with 

 saw-tooth shaped notches strongly suggesting teeth, and this fact has given 

 this bird much interest to our evolutionary scientists, as a bird with teeth 

 would be a connecting link between birds and mammals. 



I have noticed a habit with this bird that I believe is entirely unique, 

 and one I am surprised that our authorities on birds have not mentioned. 

 That is that the males are entirely migratory and the females are not. After 

 the lakes and still waters freeze, the Mergansers go to the rivers which are 

 open in some places on the rapids all winter. For more than twenty years 

 I have seen female Mergansers on the Au Sable River all winter, and I have 

 frequently seen them on other Adirondack rivers, but I have never seen a 

 male Merganser in winter, and in the late fall the males and females gather 

 in separate flocks, and when the male Mergansers appear in the spring they 

 are always in flocks by themselves. I realize that the statement of a habit 

 so unusual as this should not be accepted as a fact except after careful ob- 

 servation, and I think that my observation justifies the statement, that at 

 least on the Au Sable River, the male Merganser migrates and the female 

 does not. On a hunting trip through the waters of Canada, north of Quebec, 

 in the latter half of last October, my companion and I saw many small flocks 

 of Mergansers, certainly more than a hundred birds, and they were all fe- 

 males. We concluded that the males had already gone South. 



I think the Merganser lives entirely on fish, and it is surprising to one 

 who has made no observations on the subject, to know what an enormous 

 number of young fish a flock of these ducks will destroy in a season. I 

 quote the following from my note book: "October 13th, 1882, killed fish 

 duck (female Merganser) in Slush Pond and found in her throat and stomach, 

 one pickerel, four black bass and eleven sunperch. Bob (my brother) 

 present." " October 18th, 1882, killed same kind of duck on Lake Cham- 

 plain and took out of her stomach sixty small perch. James R. Graves 

 present." 



About this time Mr. Charles T. Richardson, of Au Sable Forks, killed 

 a male Merganser, which he skinned Tor the purpose of mounting, and he 

 found an arrow head encysted in its breast. The arrow head was about an 

 inch and a quarter long, and was evidently made of hoop iron. I saw the 

 duck and the arrow shortly after its removal. Mr. Richardson sent the ar- 

 row and an account of his finding it to Forest and Stream. 



Mr. Richardson and I thought it probable that the arrow was shot into 

 the duck by some Indian while the duck was on its nesting ground in the 

 far North. Against this supposition is the fact that Mergansers nest every 

 season on our waters, which would indicate that they do not go to the far 

 North. 



While driving near my home a few summers ago, I met a boy with an 

 old shot gun and asked him what he was trying to kill, and told him that it 



