4 RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. 
a year old are often found in the plumage of the female; their 
food consists of small fry, and various kinds of shellfish. 
The red-breasted merganser is said by Pennant to breed 
on Loch Maree, in the county of Ross, in North Britain, and 
also in the isle of Islay. Latham informs us that it inhabits 
most parts of the north of Europe on the Continent, and as 
high as Iceland; also in the Russian dominions about the 
great rivers of Siberia and the Lake Baikal. Is said to be 
frequent in Greenland, where it breeds on the shores. The 
inhabitants often take it by darts thrown at it, especially in 
August, being then in moult. At Hudson’s Bay, according 
to Hutchins, they come in pairs about the middle of June, as 
soon as the ice breaks up, and build soon after their arrival, 
chiefly on dry spots of ground on the islands; lay from eight 
to thirteen white eggs the size of those of a duck; the nest 
is made of withered grass, and lined with the down of the 
breast. he young are of a dirty brown, like young goslings. 
In October they all depart southward to the lakes, where they 
may have open water. 
This species is twenty-two inches in length, and thirty-two 
in extent; the bill is two inches and three-quarters in length, 
of the colour of bright sealing-wax, ridged above with dusky ; 
the nail at the tip, large, blackish, and overhanging; both 
mandibles are thickly serrated ; irides, red; head, furnished 
with a long hairy crest, which is often pendant, but occasion- 
ally erected, as represented in the plate ; this and part of the 
neck is black glossed with green; the neck under this, for two 
or three inches, is pure white, ending in a broad space of red- 
dish ochre spotted with black, which spreads over the lower 
part of the neck and sides of the breast ; shoulders, back, and 
tertials, deep velvety black, the first marked with a number 
of singular roundish spots of white ; scapulars, white ; wing- 
coverts, mostly white, crossed by two narrow bands of black ; 
primaries, black ; secondaries, white; several of the latter 
edged with black; lower part of the back, the rump, and 
tail-coverts, grey, speckled with black ; sides under the wings, 
