164 ANx\.TID.E. 



this species, containing two eggs, on tlie 6th of June. It was 

 situated under a closelj-matted briar [Bulns] or rather mass of 

 briars, on the sloping side of a hill, about thirty yards from high- 

 water mark, and was very carelessly constructed, the materials 

 being merely fragments of the decayed briar and withered herbage, 

 with a few downy feathers. The eggs were almost wholly con- 

 cealed by these substances. The pair of mei'gansers were flying 

 about the island when we landed. We saw another pair on the 

 Lythe Rock, but searched in vain for their nest.'' 



A friend, boating on Lough INTeagh, near Toome, about twenty 

 years ago, saw one of these birds fly closely past him several 

 times, and, on his landing upon a small island, he discovered its 

 nest, containing many eggs. When I was at Shanes Castle, on 

 the banks of this lake, on the 2Sth of July, 1833, a female 

 merganser " pushed out " from the sliore with her six young, 

 which were about the size of three-weeks-old ducklings. The 

 parent kept considerably ahead of her progeny, no doubt to 

 induce them to follow with celerity, which they did for only a 

 short way from the beach, and then collected into a close little 

 group, displaying by their gestures the greatest affection towards 

 each other : all this time the old bird continued to retreat. 

 On the 29th of May, 1836, I again saw at Lough Neagh, but at 

 the opposite side, tlu'ee old birds. In these breeding localities 

 I believe that the species remains permanently, and that the 

 individuals seen upon the coasts, except in weather so severe as 

 to drive them from inland waters to the sea, are migratory birds. 

 They seem to frequent Belfast Bay chiefly when migrating south- 

 ward in early winter and northward in early spring — thus to be 

 of " double passage ;" — they are considered to be more common 

 at these periods than in mid-Avinter. 



My notes on them here are : — March. 1831, two killed. April 9, 

 1838 ; two beautiful specimens shot in the bay, both in the plumage of 

 Bewick's red-breasted merganser, with two black stripes across the white 

 on the wing ; a third was in company with them.* September 20, 1837 ; 



* Major T. Walker remarked in a letter to me resi^eetiug Bewick's figure, that it 

 does not represent the crest as this usually appears. In birds which he had living, 



