GOOSANDER 



69 



count. Mr. Pennant observes that they continue the whole year 

 m the Orknies ; and have been shot in the Hebrides, or Western 

 islands of Scotland in summer. They are also found in Iceland, 

 and Greenland, and are said to breed there ; some asserting that 

 they build on trees ; others that they make their nests among the 

 rocks. 



The male of this species is twenty-six inches in length, and 

 three feet three inches in extent, the bill three inches long, and 

 nearly one inch thick at the base, serrated on both mandibles ; 

 the upper overhanging at the tip, where each is furnished with a 

 large nail ; the ridge of the bill is black, the sides crimson red ; 

 irides red; head crested, tumid, and of a black color glossed with 

 green, which extends nearly half way down the neck, the rest of 

 which, with the breast and belly, are white tinged with a delicate 

 yellowish cream ; back and adjoining scapulars black ; primaries 

 and shoulder of the wing brownish black ; exterior part of the 

 scapulars, lesser coverts, and tertials, white ; secondaries neatly 

 edged with black, greater coverts white, their upper halves black, 

 forming a bar on the wing, rest of the upper parts and tail brown- 

 ish ash ; legs and feet the color of red sealing wax ; flanks marked 

 with fine semicircular dotted lines of deep brown; the tail extends 

 about three inches beyond the wings. 



This description was taken from a full plumaged male. The 

 young males, which are generally much more numerous than the 

 old ones, so exactly resemble the females in their plumage for at 

 least the first, and part of the second year, as scarcely to be dis- 

 tinguished from them; and what is somewhat singular, the crests 

 of these and of the females are actually longer than those of the 

 full grown male, though thinner towards its extremities. These 

 circumstances have induced some late Ornithologists to consider 

 them as two different species, the young, or female, having been 

 called the Dun Diver, By this arrangement they have entirely 

 deprived the Goosander of his female ; for in the whole of my 



VOL. VIII. s 



