9 8 British Diving Ducks 
your eye, and you see that it is not a tree at all, but a bunch of long necks and snake- 
like heads. The exigencies of the pot are predominant, for Caribou may be still far distant, 
and Indians must have "meat" of some sort, so you pick up your gun, but never so 
quickly that the Goosanders have failed to detect the movement, and are already dashing 
down-stream past the boat. 
The males leave the females as soon as they commence to sit, and keep in small 
parties together until the late autumn. Whilst passing up the Stickine River, Alaska, 
in August 1908, our steamer disturbed five old male Goosanders in eclipse plumage, 
and these kept flying in front of us the whole day, without permitting an approach nearer 
than 400 or 500 yards. Females and young often swam down-stream near the steamer, 
but the shy males gave us a very wide berth. If specimens are required. Goosanders 
are easily shot by marking the part of a river where the birds are in the habit of 
feeding, and by the sportsman taking up a position hidden in some "narrow" a quarter 
of a mile or so above. A man should then be sent a mile or two down-stream, and told 
to walk towards the concealed gunner. Goosanders are more easily driven up-stream 
than down-stream, and always keep lower in their flight under such circumstances. It 
is, however, very necessary that the shooter should possess a good water-dog or a canoe 
to recover the birds that are killed, as they always fall in the river and are rapidly 
carried away. 
Even if a Goosander sees a gunner commanding a "neck" up-stream, it is seldom 
it will flinch, but will come straight on. On the other hand, I have often seen Goosanders 
flying down-stream in a party notice a single man or a boat, and make a sudden swing 
in the air and retreat up-stream again. They are far more cautious and wary than the 
Red-breasted Merganser, and are very difficult to stalk on estuaries or large lakes, 
owing to their watchfulness and keen eyesight. They are also far more difficult to kill, 
and to ensure death the charge has to be placed well forward in the head and neck. 
Goosanders are captured in continental waters by the means usually employed in trapping 
Golden-Eyes, &c., which has already been described. They are also captured at times 
by means of fish-hooks baited with living fish. 
I have always found that young Mergansers, in spite of their fish diet, are quite 
eatable, and even palatable, before they go to the sea or become adult. After six months 
of age they seem to me to be quite uneatable. Except after the breeding season adults 
are always very fat, and this fat has a rancid and pungent flavour. The eggs are quite 
good eating. The down of this species is only second to that of the Eiders, and in 
northern lands it is collected, whilst adult birds are shot in the spring, and their skins, 
freed from the feathers, are much valued as articles of clothing. 
It cannot be denied that Goosanders are most injurious to the breeding of fish 
in Highland rivers and streams, for the amount of young trout and salmon destroyed by 
them in a single season is enormous. Yet proprietors of Highland birds, beasts, and 
fish, whilst waging inveterate war on such harmless creatures as kestrels and owls, pay 
but little attention to the Goosanders decimating the young fish in the streams, and 
even hatcheries, as they do. Perhaps it is fortunate that they do not observe these 
birds too closely, for outdoor life in the northern rivers would be less interesting if it 
were robbed of the presence of this bird, one of its most beautiful creations. 
