GOOSANDER AND MERGANSER IN THE FORTH AREA 105 



NOTES ON THE BREEDING OF THE GOOSANDER 

 AND THE RED-BREASTED MERGANSER IN 

 THE FORTH AREA; A RETROSPECT. 



By William Evans, F.R.S.E., M.B.O.U. 



Nearly half a century ago a pair of Goosanders nested 

 in the western section of the Forth Area, and in due course 

 the fact was put on record. Further occurrences in subse- 

 quent years, long ago led me to regard the species as a 

 regular breeder in that district, and in my review of our 

 knowledge of the fauna of " Forth," ^ I drew attention to 

 the circumstance that in this area the Goosander attains the 

 southern limit of its distribution in Britain. It was, there- 

 fore, somewhat of a surprise to me to find that the Misses 

 Baxter and Rintoul, in their recently published booklet 

 on Some Scottish Breeding Duck ; their Arrival and Dispersal, 

 were unable to give any record of the breeding of the 

 Goosander in Forth, other than their own for Aberfoyle 

 in 191 7. 



Fortunately an early instance of the Goosander breeding 

 in this area was, as I have said, duly recorded, and for that 

 we have to thank the late Mr J. Buchanan Hamilton of Leny 

 (then Mr J. Hamilton Buchanan). In his " List of the Birds 

 which have been observed in the Parish of Callander, 

 Perthshire," and in his paper " On the Distribution of the 

 Goosander {^Mergus merganser^ in Scotland during the 

 Breeding Season " — both read at meetings of the Royal 

 Physical Society of Edinburgh in 1879 and published in its 

 Proceedings (vol. v., pp. 52 and 189), he told of the nesting 

 of a pair of Goosanders on the banks of the Teith in 1877. 

 " Their nest was on the grass among the roots of an old ash 

 tree, about twenty yards from the river." These facts he 

 had from the owner of the property on which, " in the park," 

 the nest was, and where later on he himself saw " the old 

 female and the four young birds." I have always been 

 under the impression that the locality was down the river 



^ Proc. R. Phys. Soc. Edin., for 1906-7, vol. xvii., p. 64. 

 127 AND 128 O 



