RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. 397 



should be any such, as this bird is capable of taking flight as readily as any 

 with which I am acquainted. It uses the greatest precaution in retiring to 

 the nest; and on more occasions than one I have remained well concealed at 

 a short distance for upwards of an hour before the bird came back to her 

 eggs. Perhaps this may tend to shew that there is less necessity for keeping 

 the eggs warm, even when they are about to be hatched, in this than in other 

 species, which are known to resume incubation as soon as possible. 



The young betake themselves to the water a few hours after birth, and are 

 from the first so expert at diving as to be procurable only with great 

 difficulty. Indeed, when they are about a fortnight old, they move with 

 astonishing rapidity, whether on the surface, where they run with almost 

 the speed of a greyhound, or in the water, itself, in which they shew 

 themselves as much at home as if they were seals or otters. The only means 

 of catching them that I have found successful is to throw stones at them, 

 whenever they rise, until becoming fatigued, they make for the shore, 

 where they stretch themselves out and remain quite still, so that you may 

 go up to them and take them with the hand. 



At the approach of autumn they resemble the old females; but the sexes 

 can easily be distinguished by examining the unguis or extremity of the 

 upper mandible, which will be found to be white or whitish in the males, 

 and red or reddish in the females. The young males begin to assume the 

 spring dress in the beginning of February, but they do not acquire their full 

 size and beauty until the second year. 



The Red-breasted Merganser is a shy bird. The males especially are 

 extremely suspicious and vigilant, after they have left the females incubating, 

 and when they congregate in flocks of from five to twenty on some 

 sequestered clear stream, to renew their plumage. The moult is completed 

 in the end of July or beginning of August, and at that season I had the 

 greatest difficulty in procuring them, for, being then almost unable to rise 

 from the water, they seemed to dive with an alertness proportionally greater. 



The flesh of this bird is tough, and has a fishy taste. I have represented 

 a male and a female, along with a new species of Sarracenia, which is found 

 abundantly from Pensacola to Georgia, as well as in some parts of South 

 Carolina. 



Red-breasted Merganser, Mergus Serrator, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. viii. p. 91. 



Mergus Serrator, Bonap. Syn., p. 397. 



Mergu3 Serrator, Bed-breasted Merganser, Swains, and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. ii. 



p. 462. 

 Red-rreasted Merganser, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 463. 

 R.ed-erea3ted Merganser, Mergits Serrator, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. v. p. 92. 



Male, 24 \, 33. Female, 24, 34^. 



