GOOSANDER. 
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having placed the pony and trap in the host shelter availahle, we made our w^ay indoors to an ait the abatement 
of a succession of blinding squalls of sleet and rain now sweeping up the glen. Uncertainty always existing as 
to where a halt is likely to be made when travelling through unfrequented districts, my conveyance, as usual, 
contained an ample siipply of ereature comforts, and the delay caused by the continuation ot the storm was 
but little heeded. Having thoroughly discussed the prospects of the coming season, I happened to inquire it 
Goosanders were ever seen in this part of the glen ; while passing along the burnside, a short distance below 
the bothy, my attention had been attracted by feathers, evidently from the wing of this species, partially trodden 
into the soil, and this had led to the question. On several occasions during the many years passed by my 
informant in this district, I learned that he had observed the female with her brood working down the burn 
towards the large lochs in the vicinity of the river. After describing an amusing scene that occurred some 
years back, when the gillies in attendance on a tishing-party, at the request of the sportsmen, had made vain 
and ludicrous attempts to secure one or two specimens from a brood surprised in a rocky portion of the burn, 
he concluded by stating that the previous spring an old female had been captured in the adjoining room to that 
in whieh wo sat. Having made fiudher inquiries, and carefully examined the premises, I ascertained that 
the facts of the case were as follows : — The bothy consisted of two rooms, the larger of Avhich was nsed as the 
kitchen, and contained among other articles a large ^vooden meal-chest. At the end of the season previous to 
the last, Avhen the building was locked up for the winter, this chest still held a quantity of meal, and on 
entering the kitchen and unbolting the shutters the following year it was discovered that a rat had gnawed a 
hole through the wood (round as if cut Avith an auger) in order to reach the meal. Again, as usual at the 
conclusion of the shooting-season, the bothy Avas shut up for tlie Avinter, and a second time a quantity of meal 
I’emained in the chest. In order to put a stop to the depredations of rats, an ordinary spring trap AAas placed 
near the old hole (noAV stopped by a large bung of cork), and in this a female Goosander was lying dead Avhen 
the room AA^as opened in the spring. In no other manner could the bird have effected an entrance unless by 
means of the chimney ; the upper part, originally constructed of rough-hewn timl)cr, now charred and Aveather- 
beaten, someAvhat resembled the cavity in an old and rotten stump. It can only be supposed that the female, 
Avhile searching for nesting-quarters, by some strange mishap made her Avay into the chimney, and having 
fluttered dowuAvards to the kitchen, had flapped round the room in her fruitless efforts to escape, till taken in 
the trap. 
A feAV Avords Avith reference to the Plates may prove of service : — 
Plate I. Pemale with brood about seven weeks old. The specimens from which the figures are taken Avere 
obtained in the Highlands in July 1878. 
Plate II. Adult male, shot in the north of Scotland in March 1878 ; also a male in the plumage of the 
first or second Avinter, obtained in the west of Perthshire in December 1866. 
