TUE RED-BREASTED MERGATISER, 
Mergus serrator, Linné. 
ae en (en 
Vernacular Names.—[None.] 
Se) es 
My N the 24th of November 1875, Captain Bishop shot a 
§ female Merganser, at Manoura Point, Kurrachee. The 
specimen was preserved, and some years later kindly 
sent tome by Mr. Murray, of the Kurrachee Museum, 
I did not examine it closely at the time, and it was 
only, when writing my article on the preceding 
: "species, and clesely scrutinizing our large series of 
the Oe nde: that I discovered that Captain Bishop’s bird 
was unmistakably a female of the Red-breasted Merganser. 
No other instance of its occurrence within our limits is known. 
It is common in winter throughout China (as it likewise is in 
Japan), but Pére David tells us that he never succeeded in 
procuring an adult male there. Probably chiefly the birds of 
the year visit China. At Lake Hanka, Prjevalski found it scarce. 
In Mongolia he only saw it at the Dalai-Nor, and in Kansu he 
met with only a single specimen, a young ene. Throughout 
Southern and South-eastern Siberia, where it breeds freely, it is 
more common than the preceding species. It has not yet 
been recorded from Yarkand, Western Turkestan, Afghanistan 
or Beluchistan (unless, as is possible, the birds observed by 
Bishop at Chabour and Jask on the Mekran Coast belonged to 
this, and not, as he believed, the preceding species,) nor even in 
Persia, the Caspian or Asia Minor; but I suspect it will prove 
to occur as a rare straggler in severe winters to most, if not all, 
of these localities. 
On the coasts of Palestine it is common ; it has been observed 
in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and has occurred accidentally in Egypt 
and Algeria. 
It occurs throughout Europe, elsewhere on passage orasa 
winter visitant only, but breeding in Scotland, the Shetland 
and Feeroe Islands, very abundantly in Iceland, in Denmark, 
Sweden and Norway right up to the North Cape, the southern 
littoral of the Baltic, Finland and Northern Russia. On the 
whole perhaps it is more common in the north, and less so 
in the south than the Goosander, 
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