18 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
except the abdomen, which has a sahnon tinge. The bill, feet and 
legs are vermillion. As one takes such a creature from the water, 
he cannot help feeling that he has come into the possession of one of 
earth's rarer beauties. Fall birds are mostly dull colored females, or 
young males which resemble them. They feed almost wholly on fish, 
though I once examined one, killed in March, which had swallowed 
an enormous bullfrog. 
Merganser serrator. Red-breasted iMergAx\ser. 130. 
The Red-breasted Merganser is more closely confined to the ocean 
and its immediate vicinity than either of the other mergansers, though 
it finds Great Bay sufficiently salt to suit its taste, and it may be 
found there any fall or spring. It is somewhat smaller than the 
preceding species, but it is colored in general very much like it. The 
male serrator, however, is embellished with a crest not found on 
a7nericaims . The females of the two species cannot be distinguished 
out of hand. In hand, however, they are quickly told apart by 
noticing the position of the nostril. In serrator the nostril is back 
within the depth of the bill, or less, of the feathers, mam eric amis 
the nostril is much farther from the feathers. 
Lophodytes cucullatus. Hooded Merganser. 131. 
Hooded Mergansers are not uncommon visitants to Great Bay and 
its tributaries in late fall and early spring. Sonietimes they come 
into the mill-pond and again into Salt river quite near the village. 
In November, 1900, three females were taken at one shot by Mr. 
Palmer but a little way below the bridge by the sawmill. In exam- 
ining the stomach contents of one of these specimens I found it to 
consist of two small minnows {Ftaidjtlns) and an immense number of 
fish vertebras. In the same bird was a tapeworm, seven inches long, 
which lay approximately lengthwise of the abdominal cavity, its 
head in contact with the duck's liver. Adult males, which are one of 
our handsomest w'ater birds, are relatively few, as compared with 
females and young males in immature plumage. 
These mergansers are usually seen in small flocks, swimming near 
shore, the home of the minnow, when feeding. They are expert 
divers, remaining submerged for a considerable time, and when not 
feeding frequently engaged in a kind of play, diving, splashing, and 
performing various antics in a most engaging manner. 
