116 



WILD ANIMALS OP GLACIER NATIONAL PAEK. 



Stanton Lake all wintei- long. When the lake froze up they went 

 up the creek, swimming about in the big pools. No wild fowl of any 

 other kind came into the lake from November 15 to February' 22." 

 Mr. Bryant has taken merganser eggs on Stanton Lake, so the birds 

 are doubtless resident. 



The mergansers have the interesting habit of fishing in small 

 bands, and their maneuvers will repay close observation. 



Eed-beeasted Merganser: Mergus serrator. — Late in October, 

 1887, Dr. Grinnell found red-breasted mergansers, with the long, 

 hairlike crests, in company with a large variety of waterfowl, abun- 

 dant on the Lower St. Mary Lake, and Mr. Gird reports them as 

 found in spring, summer, and fall between Waterton Creek and the 



From Handbook of Birds o£ the Wpstern ITnitpd States, 



Fig. 21. — Red-breayted merganser. 



North Fork of the Flathead on the west and Belly River on the east 

 side of the park. Mr. F. F. Licbig has a specimen taken on Lake 

 ilcDonald some years ago. 



These mergansers also hunt in companies, as Mr. E. LI. Eaton 

 describes it, " sometimes advancing with wide, extended front, driv- 

 ing the fish before them and diving simultaneously so that, which- 

 ever way their prey xni\y dart, there is a serrated beak and capacious 

 gullet ready to receive them." 



FIooDED Merganser: Loplwdyfes cucuUatus. — Mr. Stevenson re- 

 l)orts seeing the hooded merganser, with the white-centered, wheel- 

 shaped crest, mostly in spring and fall, in ones or twos on small 

 ponds, but Mr. Bryant says that it breeds on the Middle Fork of the 



