278 INDIAN DUCKS. 



Its nest lias been taken frequently in the British Isles, thongh the l)ird is 

 more common in winter than in the l)r(HMling-season ; it is t'ouiid at that 

 season tlnoughout Denmark, Norway and Sweden, North Germany, and 

 North and East Russia, and thence throughout North (Jentral Asia, 

 descending through far lower latitudes — /. c, Himalayas, the Pamirs, 

 Thibet, Persia, &c., &c. — in the west than in the east. 



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 ' Hough 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 l)y 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, tir, and elder, stretching from a swamp 

 up a steep brae and iL-'ithin a mile of a loch."" (The italics are mine.) 



Dresser, in his ' Birds of Europe,' notes : — " In Denmark it ... . 

 remains to breed, nesting in hollow trees. ^' 



Acerbi, quoted by Yarrell, Hume, &c., &c., writes of Lapland : — " 7Vie 

 Menjus merganser instead of building a small nest like the ducks .... 

 chooses to lay her eggs in a trunk of an old tree, in which time or the 

 hand of man has made such an excavation as she can conveniently enter. 

 The person that waylays the bird for her eggs places against a iir 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 ; presently the peasant 

 comes and takes away the eggs, leaving, however, one or two ; the bird 

 returns, and, finding but a single egg, lays two or three more, which the 

 man purloins in the same manner; the bird still returns and .... })roceeds 

 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, the mother takes the chicks gently in her 

 bill and lays them down at the foot of the tree, when she teaches them 

 the way to the river, in which they instantly sw'im 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 custom being recorded 

 from Scandinavia, Pussia, Finland, North Germany, Lapland, and 



