4 BIRDS OP PENNSYLVANIA, 



ever cautious and vigilant, will dive at the flash of a gun and proceed 

 under the water to a very considerable distance before reappearing. 

 These birds, it is said, when endeavoring to elude their enemies, and 

 also, at times, when in quest of food, swim under the water with greater 

 rapidity than they fly through the air. " Far out at sea in winter, and 

 in the great western lakes, particularly Huron and Michigan in sum- 

 mer, I have often heard, on a fine, calm morning, the sad and wolfish 

 call of the solitary loon, which, like a dismal echo, seems slowly to 

 invade the ear. and rising as it proceeds, dies away in the air. This 

 boding sound to mariners, supposed to be indicative of a storm, may 

 be heard sometimes for two or three miles, when the bird itself is in- 

 visible, or reduced almost to a speck in the distance." Nuttall. 



The stomach-contents of five Loons, captured during the winter 

 months in Chester and Delaware counties, Pa., consisted entirely of 

 fish-bones and scales; two other specimens, purchased in the winter 

 of 1881 from a game dealer in Philadelphia, were found to have fed 

 on small seeds and portions of plants, apparently roots. 



ORDER ANSERES LAMELLIROSTRAL SWIMMERS. 



FAMILY ANATID^E. DUCKS, GEESE, ETC. 

 SUBFAMILY MERGING. MERGANSERS.* 

 GENUS MERGANSER. BRISSON. 

 129. Merganser americanus (CASS). 



American Merganser; Goosander; Sheldrake; Fish Duclc. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Feathers of the forehead extending on the bill in an acute angle for half the dis- 

 tance between those on the sides and the nostril ; outline of those on the sides nearly 

 vertical, and reaching only a little beyond the beginning of lower edge of bill, but 

 as far as those on the side of lower jaw ; nostril large, far forward, its middle oppo- 

 site the middle of the commissure. 



Male. Head without conspicuous crest ; head and neck green ; forepart of back 

 black ; beneath salmon-color ; wings mostly white, crossed by one band of black ; 

 sides scarcely barred transversely; iris red or yellowish. 



Female. Head with a compressed occipital crest ; head and neck chestnut, above 

 ashy; beneath salmon-colored; white of greater coverts with a terminal bar of ashy 

 (sometimes wanting); the black of base of secondaries entirely concealed ; outer ter- 

 tials ash. 



* The Mergansers or Fishing Ducks are probably the most common of all " Wild Ducks " about 

 our smaller streams and ponds during the winter season. Mergansers can easily be recognized 

 by the bill, which is long (two inches or more in length), hooked, almost cylindrical, quite slender 

 and furnished with saw-like teeth. Like the Loons and Grebes, these birds are most proficient 

 divers; when swimming under the water they employ their wings in the same manner as in tiy- 

 ing in the air. Mergansers subsist almost wholly on fish. 



