HOODED MERGANSERS. 
423 
fissures, or wind-swept ledges of tlie cliffs. But a glance may here 
be given to an ocean-bird variously named the hooded merganser 
and the hooded goosander, which belongs to a distinct family, about 
intermediate between the ducks and the cormorants. There is much 
significance in his zoological name merganser, or diver-goose. It tells 
at once a world as to his habits. Of all the mergansers, we take the 
hooded to be the handsomest, with his greenish-black head, and 
white breast, marked by a curious triangular patch of black ; his 
sides, brownish-yellow, but waved with black; and all his plumage 
glossed with emerald gleams. He is seldom if ever found in the 
south of England, but visits the deep-sea lochs and broad firths of 
the Scottish coast, and in large numbers gathers in the sandy bays of 
the Hebrides. 
He sits the water much like a cormorant, but does not sink so 
deep. His diving is wonderful to see, and he cleaves the water with 
admirable speed and directness. Mr. Macgillivray has a pleasant 
description of the modus operandi of this bird and his congeners. 
You may suppose the observer to be jammed into the crack of a rock, 
bareheaded, and peeping cunningly at the advance-guard as they 
approach. There they glide along; and coming into shallow water, 
thrust their heads below the surface, raise them, and apparently look 
around to see that no foe is near. Now down goes one, with a jerk ; 
then another: a third, a fourth, and at last the whole company, like 
a group of French bathers at Tourville. Now note how smartly they 
shoot along under the water, with wings partially outspread; some 
darting right forward, others wheeling and doubling. A throng of 
flounders, startled by the hurricane, shoot right out to sea, unpursued. 
How gracefully they rise to the surface ! one here, another there, a 
whole covey at once emerging, and all without the least noise or 
splutter ! They feed entirely upon fish, and spend most of their time at 
sea. Their nest, placed always among the sedge and water-grass, is a 
rude affair of grass and bent and roots, lined with down from the 
female's breast. 
THE MEWS. 
Equally inartificial in construction is the nest of the mews, which 
