Order ANSERES. 
Family ANATID2®. 
MERGANSER AMERICANUS (Cassy). (129.) 
AMERICAN MERGANSER. 
This is the largest species of the true Fish Ducks. They 
reach the larger lakes somewhat before the disappearance of 
the ice. A narrow border may have yielded to the advancing 
sun and invited the fish from under the frozen canopy into its 
grateful rays, and thus offering the ducks their chosen food 
in abundance, but if they have counted upon such a repast 
they are liable to great disappointment, for the retreating 
cold often returns with a vigor that closes again every opening 
in the ice of the still waters of the lakes and ponds, when the 
premature invaders will be compelled to seek their supplies 
in the swift currents of the streams and rivers. At the time 
of their spring migrations, they appear in considerable fiocks, 
and no inconsiderable numbers are killed by persons unfamil- 
liar with their habits, and ignorant of their valuelessness for 
food, at least such was formerly the case; but since the coun- 
try has become more extensively occupied by settlement, and 
been cultivated along the shores of their former haunts, they 
have disappeared from the more frequented lakes, and are 
now seldom seen except in the remoter districts. There they 
still breed in comparatively fair numbers. They place their 
nests in the forks of dead trees of the forest. bordering the 
water where the banks are low and flat, or upon ledges of 
rock overhanging the water, in extremely secluded places. 
The nest consists of grass, leaves, moss, etc., over which are 
placed their own feathers in sufficient quantity for warmth to 
be easily maintained while incubation is in process. The eggs 
are about ten in number, and are of a cream white color, that 
varies in different eggs of the same nest. In earlier days, 
