Red-breasted Merganser 107 
On the whole the Red-breasted Merganser may be described as a summer visitor 
to the Arctic and colder regions, only staying in a few places where open water is 
found all the winter, indigenous to Newfoundland, Scotland, and the Southern and Central 
Norwegian and Swedish coasts, &c., and in winter a migrant to England, Central and 
Southern Europe, Asia, and the east and west coasts of America south of the St. Lawrence 
and South Alaska. Whilst on migration mergansers fly very high in the air in the usual 
wedge-shaped formation and are generally led by an old female. 
The Red-breasted Merganser usually lives upon the sea for the greater part of the 
year, but even in winter it seems to have an affection for fresh and brackish waters, 
and if there are large lakes near at hand they spend many hours of the day and night 
there. 
On the sea they seem to prefer to keep near the shore about a point of land, inlets, 
bays, islands, or tideways, and have an especial affection for tidal estuaries, up which they 
regularly pass at certain hours of the tide to feed in the shallow channels left at low water. 
A very favourite haunt of the Red-breasted Merganser in Scotland is the estuary of the 
Little Ferry in Sutherland. Here I have watched large numbers of these birds coming 
in from the sea at half-ebb to fish, rest, and wash in the brackish waters of this sheltered 
and quiet bay. Whether the weather was rough or still they always kept in little parties 
of three to ten, and after passing the narrow neck at the mouth flew from a few hundred 
yards to half a mile before settling in the main stream. Then as the tide ebbed they 
commenced to feed and explored the edges of the numerous sandbanks and mussel banks 
in search of sand-eels and other small fish, returning again to the sea when the channels 
became too deep, 
A certain number of Red-breasted Mergansers, generally single birds, wander far into 
the heart of Scotland and Ireland in the winter and frequent the lakes and remain there 
unless frost drives them out ; and even on the coast in mid-winter very severe conditions 
will cause packing and a temporary migration. In the severe winter of 1878-1879 Sir 
R. Payne-Gallwey saw several hundreds swimming together in Queenstown Harbour 
(co. Cork), but I have never seen large flocks in winter in Scotland even in the hardest 
weather, the packing only being noticeable in autumn. They are not afraid of the high 
seas, for I have seen them resting in very rough places at times, but it is unusual to 
find them anywhere in the vicinity of breakers or very far from land. In summer they 
frequent quiet fresh-water lakes, streams with well-wooded banks, slow-moving rivers 
amongst the Arctic barrens and the sheltered coast-line. In fact, at this season they 
seem to choose almost any place where food is abundant and man seldom comes. 
In flight, carriage of the body, gait, and movement, the Red-breasted Merganser closely 
resembles the Goosander, and at a distance the females may easily be confused. The 
female Red-breasted Merganser is, however, much smaller, and as birds of this species 
are generally seen in parties, the appearance of the males at once gives a clue to what 
the birds are. On the water Red-breasted Mergansers are very active and restless in 
pursuit of their prey, and when fishing seem to sink their bodies lower in the water than 
Goosanders. After diving altogether with a quick " duck " under the surface, they turn hither 
and thither with surprising rapidity, often chasing the fish into the shallows and snapping 
them as they turn to retreat. In the quickness of movements in the water they are only 
