MERC4ANSER CASTOE, 275 



blessed with strong, healthy appetites ; . . . when wounded or alarmed, I 

 have occasionally remarked an immense quantity o£ fish was thrown up. 

 After a shot .... at a number of these birds .... scores of small rudd and 

 roach were discovered lying on the surface where the flock had been 

 restino-." 



Again, to quote Mr. Finn from the ' Asian ' : — " A captive bird I had 

 under observation devoured no less than forty fish, about two inches lono-, 

 at a meal. No castings were found, but bones and all were dioested as 

 by a Cormorant, and the excreta were semi-fluid and very foetid. The 

 stomach of this bird proved to be soft throughout, not hard and muscular 

 like a duck's gizzard.^' Some time after this was written, Mr. Finn was 

 talking to me about this same Goosander, and he observed to me that the 

 attitude of the bird on the completion of his meal was undoubtedly rather 

 pensive, and he wore a rather strained look about his face, as if he knew 

 he had reached the limit of his carrying capacity. Dr. Moore, of the 

 Planters^ Stores in Dibrugarh, took fourteen fish, weighing 9 ounces, from 

 the crop of a male, and on another occasion I extracted 8 ounces of fish 

 from a female who had, when first wounded, already thrown up some. 



The cry with which the Goosander is generally credited is a croak l)y 

 no means musical or soft, but Booth describes the note of the female and 

 young as being a soft plaintive whistle. 



The only note I have heard was a low guttural quack, uttered both by 

 males and females, and by the latter, only, a low, plaintive, half hiss, 

 half whistle. I spent several days on the Subansiri River, which 1 

 devoted entirely to obtaining specimens of the Goosander, and they un- 

 doubtedly gave me as good sport and as careful stalking as I could 

 wish for, my best day only giving me seven birds brought to book. 



Dawn found me on the river in a dug-out, and the Cormorants were 

 then already passing in huge flights down to their feeding-grounds, but 

 the Goosanders did not commence to flight until about half an hour after 

 the first streaks of daylight appeared. The first flight was a small one of 

 half a dozen birds, which passed well out of shot, but these were at once 

 followed by a flight of nearly one hundred birds in a long line which 

 stretched nearly half across the stream, and the nearest of these appearing 

 to be within shot, I let drive and dropped two. One, dead, fell almost 

 into the boat, but the other, only winged, fell with a splash a hundred 

 yards away and at once dived. Paddling as hard as they could, the 

 boatmen took me to the spot in a very few seconds, l)ut as we arrived 

 there the snake-like head of the Goosander showed from the water nearly 



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