640 BIRDS — ^ANATIDuE. 



Genus MEEGUS. LinnEens. 

 With characters of the suh-family. 



Snb-genns Mergus. Bill not shorter than the head. Head with a depressed crest. 

 Tarsus two-thirds the middle toe. 



Mergus mekgansbe Linnaeus. 



mergazLsei:*; Groosander. 



Mergus merganser, Klrtland, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 166, 187.— Whbaton, Food of 

 Birds, etc, Ohio Agric. Eep. for 1874, 574 ; Reprint, 1875, 14.— Langdon, Cat. Birds 

 of Cin., 1877, 17 ; Revised List, Journ. Gin. Soo. Nat. Hist,, i, 1879, 186 ; Reprint, 20 ; 

 Summer Birds, ib., iii, 1880, 229. 



Mergus americanus, Wheaton, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 370 ; Reprint, 1861, 13. 



Goosander,- KiRTLAKD, Fam. Visitor, i, 1850. 



Mergus merganser, LlNN^US, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 209. 

 Mergm americanus, Cassin, Proc. Phila. Acad., 1853, 187. 



Nostrils nearly median ; frontal feathers reaching beyond those on sides of bill ; male 

 with the head scarcely crested, glossy green ; back and wings black and white, latter 

 crossed by one black bar; under parts salmon-colored; length, about 24; wing, 11; 

 female smaller, occipital crest better dcTeloped, but still flimsy ; head and neck reddish- 

 brown ; black parts of the male ashy-gray ; less white on the wing ; under-parjis less 

 tinted with salmon. 



Habitat, North America. Europe. Asia. 



Common spring and fall migrant, but in most parts of the State 

 winter resident as well, and in Northern Ohio summer resident, formerly 

 breeding commonly. Perhaps breeds in Middle Ohio, as I have met with 

 them in pairs in June. 



Most modern writers have omitted mention of a point in the structure 

 of the birds of this sub-family, which can not escape the notice of the 

 taxidermist. I refer to the structural difference in the oesophagus and 

 integument of the throat and neck as compared with other ducks. In 

 this sub-family the skin is loose, and the gullet enormously distensible, 

 this peculiar looseness of the skin is as strongly marked as in the King- 

 fisher, and evidenced by the ease with which the head is withdrawn 

 in skinning a specimen. I once took a male bird in winter, which 

 had, to my surprise, the tail of a fish protruding from its mouth. 

 As the bird did not appear to have been choking when killed, I made a 

 careful examination and discovered that it had made a meal of an ordi- 

 nary white sucker, the head of which had been so nearly digested by the 

 stomach, that the bones were separated, and the undigested portion from 

 the occiput to end of tail, which lay in the gullet and mouth measured 

 seven inches. 



