196 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



Family— ANA TIDyE. 



Red-Breasted Merganser. 



Mergus serraior, LiNN. 



THE Red-breasted Merganser is more of a marine species than the preceding, 

 and has also a much more extended range. It is a winter visitor to 

 England, but resident in some numbers and breeding in many parts of Scotland and 

 Ireland. The Merganser is common all the year round in the Shetlands and many 

 nest there on those parts of the coast which are not too rocky and precipitous, 

 and from what Saxby has said it must be an increasing species in the islands ; in 

 the Orkneys, too, it is common and resident ; it is also fairly plentiful in all suitable 

 localities in the Outer and Inner Hebrides, but only a very rare visitor to St. 

 Kilda. Resident and breeding in Faeroe : Colonel Feilden noticed it sparingly 

 distributed through those islands ; also nesting in Iceland. In Scandinavia it is 

 exceedingly common. Von Heuglin found the Merganser on Waigats Island, 

 mixed with flocks of the Long-tailed Duck and Black Scoter. At the end of 

 June, in 1884, Mr. Chapman saw several hundred Mergansers in a flock on the 

 Tana fjord. It is a very common bird in the neighbourhood of Archangel in 

 summer. In East Prussia, according to Mr. Hartert, it is not so common as the 

 Goosander ; it breeds in the district, and the eggs are placed on grassy islands, 

 and not in hollow trees. 



In the winter the Merganser visits the open waters of Central and Southern 

 Europe; the Swiss and Italian Lakes. It occurs on the coast of Portugal in 

 December, January and February, also Southern Spain, leaving in spring for the 

 north. Colonel L. Howard Irby says it is found in some winters in considerable 

 numbers in the Bay of Gibraltar In Sardinia common in winter, and oflf the 

 west coast of Corsica from November to January, also to the coasts of Turkey it is 

 a common visitor. In Transylvania it is much the rarest of the two in winter, 

 the Goosander being fairly common on the rivers of that country. Colonel Shelley 

 (1872) does not include it in the birds of Egypt, although it is now known to 

 visit that country, also the lakes of Algeria. Canon Tristram obtained it on the 

 river Kishon, and Mr. Holland at Ain Musa, in the peninsula of Sinai. 



In Asia its breeding range extends across the whole of the northern part of 



