124 British Diving Ducks 
is slightly swelled, and the note is a prolonged croak or grunt like the word " err-err-err- 
umph," the last sound being an exhalation to clear the lungs, and seeming to be an effort 
on the part of the bird. During this movement the bird is stationary, with the tail either 
lying under or on the surface of the water. 
(3) On the completion of the movement there is a quick forward dip of the head and 
bill, followed by a sudden rise of the forepart of the body out of the water, something like a 
" mallard and teal " show, but not nearly so upright. In fact, it is almost a forward 
movement. At the same time the feet are paddled vigorously to maintain equilibrium. 
The call is often made as the bird throws itself up and forwards. 
(4) At the end of this movement the bird often drops to the water with neck out- 
stretched and parallel to the water, and when in full show often makes a little rush forward. 
I give Lord William Percy's observations on the same bird, as they are taken indepen- 
dently and from another observer's point of view : 
" First attitude. Simply the raising of the head and body in the water and the erection of the forepart of 
the crest. Also a general raising of feathers on head, neck, and scapulars. The bird is now swimming. 
" Second atdtude. Stops dead ; throws the head back, but does not raise the body at all. On the 
contrary, it is sunk, the water running over the tail. Crest still raised forward. 
Third attitude. The throw forward and a litde rush through the water. As the head comes 
forward the bird paddles hard without raising the body from the water, but in a forward and not in an 
upright position. It is as he throws forward one hears the call. 
" Fourth attitude. The head is not brought right down, so that the bill touches the water. At the 
end of the previous movement the head and neck are stretched out in front, the bill pointing straight. 
" There is nothing very showy about the courtship of the Smew, but it is extraordinarily pretty and 
attractive. It looks so very chaste and nun-like. I wish I could see him 'show' before his own lady 
instead of that extremely discourteous old Merganser duck." 
The nest of the Smew is placed in holes in trees, and also frequently in nesting-boxes 
put up by the Lapps for ducks to breed in. The first authentic nest of the Smew was taken 
on June 8, 1857, ^.nd sent to J. Wolley (see Ootheca JVolleyana, ii. pp. 619-27). In his 
account it is stated that the Smew is not found in the breeding season beyond the limit of 
tree-growth. 
The natural attraction which this species seems to possess for the Golden-Eye may 
sometimes be witnessed even in the breeding season. But of this we have no proof except 
the one remarkable hybrid (an adult male) killed some years ago in Brunswick and figured 
in Naumann's Vdgel Mitteleuropas, vol. x. pi. ix. 
Of the nesting habits and upbringing of the young and autumnal migrations we have no 
account, but they are doubtless much the same as those of the other Mergansers. The same 
parasitic insects affect the other species of Mergansers as the Smew, and the same 
predatory birds and animals attack them in their nesting haunts. 
These small-fish hunters come to us in such small numbers and frequent such wide 
areas of water that they are not so serious an enemy to fish as the Goosanders and Red- 
breasted Mergansers are. I am indebted to Mr. A. F. Moody for some notes on Smews 
that have been kept in confinement at Scampston. He writes : 
*• Possibly to anyone prepared to feed them entirely upon fresh-water fish or whitebait, &c., the 
Smew might prove an easy subject to keep, but when living upon an artificial diet, such as that we 
possessed, proved decidedly short-lived and unsatisfactory in captivity, for, in spite of every care and 
