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GOOSANDER 



its sharp-toothed and hooked bill is admirably calculated for se- 

 curing. It rises from the water with considerable flustering, its 

 wings being small and short; but when in the air it flies with 

 great swiftness. It is a singular circumstance that those Goosan- 

 ders which are seen in the Delaware and Schuylkill, in the vici- 

 nity of Philadelphia, are principally old males. 



The male Goosander is twenty-six inches in length, and 

 thirty-seven in extent; the bill to the angles of the mouth is three 

 inches long, nearly an inch thick at the base, strongly toothed on 

 both mandibles, the upper with two corresponding rows of fine 

 teeth within, the lower divided to the nail, and connected by a 

 thin elastic membrane, which admits of considerable expansion 

 to facilitate the passage of fish ; nostrils subovated, broader on 

 the hind part and pervious ; the bill is black above and below, its 

 sides are crimson ; the tongue is long, pointed, furnished with a 

 double row of papillae running along the middle, and has a hairy 

 border ; irides golden ; the frontlet, lores, area of the eyes, and 

 throat jet black ; head crested, tumid, and of a beautiful glossy 

 bottle green color, which extends nearly half way down the neck, 

 the remainder of which with the exterior part of the scapulars, the 

 lesser coverts, the greater part of the secondaries, the tertials and 

 lining of the wings white, delicately tinged with cream color; the 

 breast and whole lower parts are of a rich yellowish cream ; the 

 upper part of the back, and the interior scapulars are of a fine 

 glossy black ; the primaries and exterior part of the secondaries, 

 with their coverts, are brownish black; the lower part of nearly 

 all the coverts of the secondaries white, the upper part black, 

 forming a bar across the wing; the shoulder of the wing is brown- 

 ish ash, the feathers tipt with black; the middle and lower parts 

 of the back, and tail coverts ash, the plumage centred with brown; 

 the tail is brownish ash. rounded, composed of eighteen feathers, 

 and extends about three inches beyond the wings; the flanks are 

 marked with waving, finely dotted lines of ash on a white ground ; 



