VERNACULAR NAMES OF FAMILIES, SPECIES, AND OTHER 
GROUPS OF BIRDS. 
Order ANSERES: Lamellirostral Swimmers. 
Famity ANATIDAE: Ducks, GEESE, AND SWANS. 
A number of names more or less commonly used in referring to wild ducks apply to 
groups rather than to species. Most of these fit very well the scientific groupings of the 
species, which, together with the vernacular group names pertaining to them, follow: 
Subfamily Merginae (Mergansers).—Fish-ducks, sawbills, sheldrakes. 
Subfamily Anatinae (River ducks).—Dabbling, dibbling, plash, puddle, shallow 
or shoal water, surface-feeding, and tipping ducks. 
; Ean Fuligulinae (Sea ducks).—Bay, bottom-feeding, deep-water, and diving 
ucks. 
Other terms perhaps worthy of inclusion here are ‘‘common or trash ducks,’’ names 
used by market gunners to distinguish unsalable or low-priced ducks from the sal- 
able or higher-priced kinds, the latter being known as ‘‘good ducks.”’ ‘‘Pensioners”’ 
is a term applied especially to convalescing wounded birds lingering southward 
during the breeding season; sometimes unwounded birds summering south of their 
nesting range are included by this designation, but in the case of species that habitually 
do this, as scoters, these summer birds are sometimes referred to as ‘‘bachelors.’’ 
FIG. 1.—American Merganser. 
Subfamily Merernae: Mergansers. 
The three species of mergansers, Nos. 129, 130, and 131,? have several collective 
names, which are listed here to save repetition in the separate accounts of the species. 
VERNACULAR NAMES. 
In general use.—Fish ducks, sawbills. 
In local use —Bec-scie (sawbill, sometimes misspelled ‘‘bexie’’) (Que., Ala., Miss., 
La.); divers (La., Alaska); fishers, fisher ducks, fishermen, fisherman ducks, fishing 
ducks (Md. to Fla.); sheldrakes (this term has no reference to shells or mollusks, but 
means drakes dappled or spotted with white) (N. 8., New England, N. Y., N. J.). 
129. American Merganser ( Mergus merganser americanus).* (Fie. 1.) 
Range-——North America. Breeds from southern Alaska, southern Yukon, Great Slave Lake, central 
Keewatin (N. W. T.), southern Ungava (Que.), and Newfoundland south to central Oregon, southern 
South Dakota, southern Minnesota, central Michigan, Ohio (formerly), northern New York, Vermont, 
New Hampshire, and Maine, andin mountains, south to northern California, central Arizona, northern New 
Mexico, and Pennsylvania (formerly); winters from Aleutian Islands, British Columbia, Idaho, northern 
Colorado, southern Wisconsin, southern Ontario, northern New England, and New Brunswick south to 
northern Lower California, northern Mexico (Chihuahua), Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Bermuda. 
3 The species numbers appearing in the Check List of Birds of the American Ornithologists’ Union (3d 
ed., 1910) are here used both as aids inidentification and in indexing. When the scientific name heading 
an account differs from that at the corresponding number in the Check List, the latter is repeated as a foot- 
note. See example in footnote 4. 4 Mergus americanus. 
4 
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