AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



109 



GOOSANDER. 



MERGUS MERGANSER. 



[Plate X.— Male.] 



UHarle, Beiss. iv. jo. 231. 1. pi. 22. — Buff. viii. p. 

 267.pl. 23. — ^rcf. Zool. No. 465. — Lath. Syn. m. 

 p. 418. Mergus Merganser, Gmel. Syst. i. p. 544. 

 No. 2. — Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 82S, No. \.—Le Harle, 

 Buff. PI. Enl. 951, male. — Grand Harle, Temm. 

 Man d'Orn. p. S81. — J. Doughty^s Collection. 



This large and handsomely marked bird belongs to a 

 genus different from that of the Duck, on account of the 

 particular form and serratures of its bill. Tlie genus is cha- 

 racterized as follows: " -S/// toothed, slender, cylindrical, 

 hooked at the point; nostrils small, oval, placed in the 

 middle of the bill; feet four toed, the outer toe longest." 

 Naturalists have denominated it Merganser. \n this coun- 

 try, the birds composing this genus are generally known 

 by the name of Fishermen, or Fisher ducks. The whole 

 number of knovi'n species amount to only nine or ten, dis- 

 persed through various quarters of the world; of these, four 

 species, of which the present is the largest, are known to 

 inhabit the United States. 



From the common habit of these birds in feeding almost 

 entirely on fin and shell fish, their flesh is held in little es- 

 timation, being often lean and rancid, both smelling and 

 tasting strongly offish; butsuch are the various peculiari- 

 ties of tastes, that persons are not wanting who pretend to 

 consider them capital meat. 



The Goosander, called bj' some the Water Pheasant, and 

 by others the Sheldrake, Fisherman, Diver, &c., is a win- 

 ter inhabitant only of the seashores, fresh water lakes, and 

 rivers of the United States. They usually associate in small 

 parties of six or eight, and are almost continually diving in 

 search of food. \n the month of April they disappear, 

 and return again early in November. Of their particular 

 place and manner of breeding, we have no account. Mr. 

 Pennant observes that they continue the whole year in the 

 Orknies, and have been shot in the Hebrides, or Western 

 islands of Scotland, in summer. They are also found in 

 Iceland and Greenland, and are said to breed there; some 

 asserting that they build on trees; others that they make 

 their nests among the rocks. 



The male of this species is twenty-six inches in length, 

 and three feet three inches in extent, the bill three inches 

 long, and nearly one inch thick at the base, serrated on 

 both mandibles; the upper overhanging at the tip, where 



each is furnished with a large nail; the ridge of the bill is 

 black, the sides crimson red; irides red; head crested, 

 tumid, and of a black colour glossed with green, which ex- 

 tends nearly half way down the neck, the rest of which, 

 with the breast and belly, are white tinged with a delicate 

 yellowish cream: back and adjoining scapulars black; pri- 

 maries and shoulder of the wing brownish black; exterior 

 part of the scapulars, lesser coverts, and tertials white; 

 secondaries neatly edged with black, greater coverts white, 

 their upper halves black, forming a bar on the wing, rest of 

 the upper parts and tail brownish ash: legs and feet the co- 

 lour of red sealing wax; flanks marked with fine semicircu- 

 lar dotted lines of deep brown; the tail extends about three 

 inches beyond the wings. 



This description was taken from a full plumaged male. 

 The young males, which are generally much more nume- 

 rous than the old ones, so exactly resemble the females in 

 their pjlumage for at least the first, and part of the second 

 year, as scarcely to be distinguished from them; and what 

 is somewhat singular, the crests of these and of the females 

 are actually longer than those of the full grown male, 

 though thinner towards its extremities. These circum- 

 stances have induced some late Ornithologists to consider 

 them as two different species, the young, or female, having 

 been called the Dim Diver. By this arrangement they 

 have entirely deprived the Goosander of his female; for 

 in the whole of my examinations and dissections of the 

 present species, I have never yet found the female in his 

 dress. What I consider as undoubtedly the true female of 

 this species, is figured beside him. They were both shot 

 in the month of April, in the same creek, unaccompanied 

 by any other, and on examination the sexual parts of each 

 were strongly and prominently marked. The windpipe 

 of the female had nothing remarkable in it; that of the 

 male had two very large expansions, which have been 

 briefly described by Willoughby, who says: " It hath a 

 large bony labj'rinth on the windpipe, just above the diva- 

 rications; and the windpipe hath besides two swellings out, 

 one above another, each resembling a powder puff." These 

 labj-rinths are the distinguishing characters of the males, 

 and are always found even in young males who have not 

 yet thrown off the plumage of the female, as well as in the 

 old ones. If we admit these Dun divers to be a distinct 

 species, we can find no difierence between their pretended 

 females and those of the Goosander, only one kind of fe- 

 male of this sort being known, and this is contrary to the 

 usual analogy of the other three species, viz. the Red 

 breasted Merganser, the Hooded and the Smew, all of 

 whose females are well known, and bear the same com- 

 parative resemblance in colour to their respective males, 

 the length of crest excepted, as the female Goosander we 



