214 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII. 
North Germany and North and Hast Russia, and thence through North 
Central Asia, descending to far lower latitudes,-—z.e., the Himalayas, 
the Pamirs, Thibet, Persia, etc., etc.,—in the West than in the Nast. 
Normally the Goosander makes a rough nest in a hollow of a tree, 
lining the same very copiously with down. This tree is,as a rule, 
close to water, or at all events within a hundred yards or so of some 
stream or lake, but sometimes it is placed in a tree well away from all 
water. Thus Mr. Booth in “ Rough Notes” observes : “ Throughout 
the districts in which I met with Goosanders during the breeding 
season, the females appeared in some instances to resort to situations 
for nesting purposes at a considerable elevation on the hills. A 
cavity in a large and partially decayed birch was pointed out by a keeper 
as the spot from which some eggs had been taken, the old and weather- 
beaten stump was on the outskirts of a thicket of birch, fir, and alder 
stretching from a swamp up a steep brae, and within a mile of a loch” 
(the italics are mine). 
Dresser in his “ Birds of Hurope” notes “In Denmark it. .... 
remains to breed, nesting in hollow trees.” 
Acerbi, quoted by Yarrel, Hume, etc., etc., writes of Lapland : 
“The Mergus merganser, instead of building a small nest, like the ducks 
. . . chooses to lay her eggs in the trunk of an old tree, in which time 
or the hand of man has made such an excavation as she can con- 
veniently enter. The person that waylays the bird for her eges, places 
against a fir or pine tree, somewhere near the bank of a river, a decayed 
trunk, with a hole in its middle ; the bird enters and lays her eggs in it ; 
presently the peasant comes and takes away the eggs, leaving, 
however, one er two, the bird returis and, finding buta single egg, 
lays two or three more, which the man purloins in the same manner ; 
the bird still returnsand..... proceeds once more to complete the 
number she intended. She is defrauded of her eggs as before and 
continues the same process four or five times. .... As soon as the 
eggs are hatched, ihe mother takes the chicks gently in her bill and lays 
them down at the foot of the tree, whence she teaches them the way 
to the river, in which they instantly swim with astonishing facility.” 
It also often makes use of the nest boxes which are hung up in so 
many countries for the use of ducks generally, the habit being recorded 
from Scandanavia, Russia, Finland, North Germany, Lapland and 
