BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 5 



Head without conspicuous crest, though one is visible in life. Head and most of 

 neck all round very dark-green ; rest of neck and the body generally, except the 

 upper part, creamy-white, deepening to salmon-red beneath. Lower part of back, 

 rump, and tail feathers, plumbeous ; forepart of back, interscapular region, and inner 

 scapulars, black. 



Length, 26.50 inches; wing, 11; tarsus, 1.84; commissure, 2.90 inches. 



Hab. North America generally, breeding south to the northern United States. 



Mr. E. A. Samuels ( Our Northern and Eastern Birds) states that 

 this species u is one of the most abundant summer residents in the 

 lake region of northern Maine, and about the Umbagog lakes and 

 Richardson lakes it is the most common Duck." In former years the 

 Sheldrakes unquestionably bred in various sections of Pennsylvania ; 

 of late years, however, from all the information I can obtain, these 

 birds rarely, if ever, occur here during the season of reproduction. 

 Nuttall narrates the following interesting account of a brood of these 

 birds which he found in this State : 



"Early in the month of May (1832), while descending the Susque- 

 hanna near Dunnstown, a few miles below the gorge of the Alle- 

 ghenies, through which that river meanders near the foot of Bald 

 Eagle mountain, G. Lyman, Esq., and myself observed, near the head 

 of a little bushy island, some wild Duck, as we thought, with her 

 brood making off round a point whicli closed the view. On rowing to 

 the spot, the wily parent had still continued her retreat, and we gave 

 chase to the party, which, with all the exertions that could be made 

 rowing, still kept at a respectable distance before us. We now per- 

 ceived that these diminutive possessors of their natal island were a 

 female Goosander, with a small but active little brood of eight young 

 ones. On pushing the chase for near half an hour, the young, be- 

 coming somewhat fatigued, drew around their natural protector, who 

 now and then bore them along crowding on her back. At length, 

 stealing nearly from our sight, as the chase relaxed, the mother landed 

 at a distance on the gravelly shore, which, being nearly of her own 

 gray color and that of her family, served for some time as a complete 

 concealment. When we approached again, however, they took to the 

 water, and after a second attempt, in which the young strove to es- 

 cape by repeated divings, we succeeded in cutting off the retreat of 

 one of the family, which was at tength taken from behind a flat-boat, 

 under which it had finally retreated to hide. We now examined the 

 little stranger, and found it to be a young Merganser of this species, 

 not bigger than the egg of a goose, and yet already a most elegant 

 epitome of its female parent, generally gray, with the rufous head and 

 neck, and the rudiments of a growing crest. After suffering itself to 

 be examined with great calmness and without any apparent fear, we 

 restored it to its more natural element, and, at the first effort, this 

 little diminutive of its species flew under the water like an arrow, and 



