( 400 ) 

 NOTES ON THE NESTING OF THE GOOSANDER. 



BY 



NORMAN GILROY, m.b.o.u. 



EoR the last eight years or so it has been my custom to 

 spend a portion of the spring in a remote part of 

 Sutherlandshire, and although each May I have observed 

 a duck Goosander (Mergus merganser) with a brood of 

 newly-hatched young ones on the large loch near which 

 I stayed, it was not until the spring of 1908 that I actually 

 came across the nesting site, or rather, sites, for the 

 main object of these notes is to show that with the 

 Goosander there is a slight inclination to sociability. 



My previous experience of the Goosander as a nesting 

 species had been shght — confined, in fact, to the finding, 

 or rather, to the assisted discovery of a n,est on April 

 21st, 1905, in a deep cavity on the steep, rocky, and 

 sparsely-wooded bank of a river in Ross-shire (the sides 

 of the ravine were in places almost inaccessible), and to 

 the discovery, after a long and interesting watch, on 

 April 25th of the same year, of a second nest on a wooded 

 hillside in Sutherlandshire. 



In the first-mentioned case I saw little of the sitting 

 bird, for she at once scuttled out of the cavity containing 

 the nest, and flew rapidly down the gorge to the main 

 river. There were thirteen eggs and a profusion of down, 

 and incubation had commenced, although at the time the 

 ground was white with snow. I saw no sign of the drake 

 anywhere, and I am credibly informed that as soon as 

 the clutch is complete the male Goosanders leave the 

 neighbourhood and repair probably to the sea. My 

 subsequent observations tended to confirm this. 



My experience with the second pair was considerably 

 more interesting. I was sitting in a sheltered spot on the 

 wooded hillside above mentioned (which overlooks a loch 

 of considerable size) watching a couple of Eagles hunting, 

 when my attention was arrested by the movements of a 



