ANATID.E. 245 



THE MERGANSERS. 



The Mergansers form a well-defined family of diving- 

 Ducks, with rather flat and compressed bodies adapted to 

 offer the least resistance to the water, all of them adorned 

 with crests, and possessing serrated mandibles, which 

 enable them to hold the captured fish on which they 

 almost exclusively live. Two of them, the Goosander 

 and the Red-breasted Merganser, nest within the limits 

 of the United Kingdom ; the pretty black and white 

 Smew comes to us as a winter visitor from the North, and 

 none of them are seen off the Devonshire coast until the 

 season of the autumn migration arrives. One other 

 species, the Hooded Merganser, which has its home in 

 North America, a very handsome bird, with a conspicuous 

 cockade-shaped crest, has once or twice been obtained on 

 the British coast, but there is no authenticated instance 

 of its appearance in the S.W. peninsula. 



Goosander. Mergus merganser^ Linn. 



A winter visitor, of occasional occurrence, either singly or in small 

 flocks, on the bays, leys, and estuaries of the south coast, hut it is far 

 from common in the north of the count)'. The specimens met with arc 

 generally in immature plumage, or else females ; adult males in full 

 plumage are rare. The beautiful huff-colour of the breast-feathers soon 

 disappears after death. "When recently killed this bird is one of the most 

 brilliantly coloured of all our wild-fowl. 



This very handsome diver is rare on the northern coasts of Devon, 

 although it is a frequent winter visitor to the bays and estuaries in the 

 Bouth of the county, and is, in some seasons, quite common. We only 

 know of two drakes, in full plumage, having been secured in the neigh- 

 bourhood of BarnHtaple ; immature birds and females are of more frecjuent 

 occurrence, and we have ourselves seen them on tlio Barnstajdo river. 

 Mr. Kodd mentions that adults, in perfect plumage, arc also rarely 

 obtained in Cornwall. Off the Dorsetshire coast the (Joosander is not an 

 uncommon winter visitor. (Jn the North Somerset coast Goosanders arc 

 frequently obtained in severe winters. In one hard frost three or fnur 

 splendid males were brought to tho Weston-super-Mare bird-stull'cr in the 



