AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
109 
GOOSANDER. 
MERGUS MERGANSER. 
[Plate X. — Male.] 
L' Harle, Briss iv. p. 231. 1 . pi. 22. — Buff, viii, p. 
267. pi. 23. — Arct. Zool. No. 465. — Lath. Syn. in. 
p. 418. Mergus Merganser , Gmel. Syst. i. p. 544. 
No. 2. — Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 828, No. 1 . — Le Harle, 
Buff. Pl. Enl. 951, male. — Grand Harle, Temm. 
Man d'Orn. p. 881. — J. Doughty's Collection. 
This large and handsomely marked bird belongs to a 
genus different from that of the Duck, on account of the 
particular form and serratures of its bill. The genus is cha- 
racterised as follows: 11 Bill toothed, slender, cylindrical, 
hooked at the point; nostrils small, oval, placed in the 
middle of the bill; feet four toed, the outer toe longest.” 
Naturalists have denominated it Merganser. In this coun- 
try, the birds composing this genus are generally known 
by the name of Fishermen, or Fisher ducks. The whole 
number of known species amount to only nine or ten, dis- 
persed through various quarters of the world; of these, four 
species, of which the present is the largest, are known to 
inhabit the United States. 
From the common habit of these birds in feeding almost 
entirely on fin and shell fish, their flesh is held in little es- 
timation, being often lean and rancid, both smelling and 
tasting strongly of fish; but such are the various peculiari- 
ties of tastes, that persons are not wanting who pretend to 
consider them capital meat. 
The Goosander, called by some the Water Pheasant, and 
by others the Sheldrake, Fisherman, Diver, &c. is a win- 
ter inhabitant only of the seashores, fresh water lakes, and 
rivers of the United States. They usually associate in small 
parties of six or eight, and are almost continually diving in 
search of food. In the month of April they disappear, 
and return again early in November. Of their particular 
place and manner of breeding, we have no account. Mr. 
Pennant observes that they continue the whole year in the 
Orknies, and have been shot in the Hebrides, or Western 
islands of Scotland, in summer. They are also found in 
Iceland and Greenland, and are said to breed there; some 
asserting that they build on trees; others that they make 
their nests among the rocks. 
The male of this species is twenty-six inches in length, 
and three feet three inches in extent, the bill three inches 
long, and nearly one inch thick at the base, serrated on 
both mandibles ; the upper overhanging at the tip, where 
Ee 
each is furnished with a large nail; the ridge of the bill is 
black, the sides crimson red; irides red; head crested, 
tumid, and of a black colour glossed with green, which ex- 
tends nearly half way down the neck, the rest of which, 
with the breast and belly, are white tinged with a delicate 
yellowish cream: back and adjoining scapulars black; pri- 
maries and shoulder of the wing brownish black; exterior 
part of the scapulars, lesser coverts, and tertials white; 
secondaries neatly edged with black, greater coverts white, 
their upper halves black, forming a bar on the wing, rest of 
the upper parts and tail brownish ash: legs and feet the co- 
lour of red sealing wax; flanks marked with fine semicircu- 
lar dotted lines of deep brown; the tail extends about three 
inches beyond the wings. 
This description was taken from a full plumaged male. 
The young males, which are generally much more nume- 
rous than the old ones, so exactly resemble the females in 
their plumage for at least the first, and part of the second 
year, as scarcely to be distinguished from them; and what 
is somewhat singular, the crests of these and of the females 
are actually longer than those of the full grown male, 
though thinner towards its extremities. These circum- 
stances have induced some late Ornithologists to consider 
them as two different species, the young, or female, having 
been called the Dun Diver. By this arrangement they 
have entirely deprived the Goosander of his female; for 
in the whole of my examinations and dissections of the 
present species, I have never yet found the female in his 
dress. What I consider as undoubtedly the true female of 
this species, is figured beside him. They were both shot 
in the month of April, in the same creek, unaccompanied 
by any other, and on examination the sexual parts of each 
were strongly and prominently marked. The windpipe 
of the female had nothing remarkable in it; that of the 
male had two very large expansions, which have been 
briefly described by Willoughby, who says: “It hath a 
large bony labyrinth on the windpipe, just above the diva- 
rications; and the windpipe hath besides two swellings out, 
one above another, each resembling a powder puff. ” These 
labyrinths are the distinguishing characters of the males, 
and are always found even in young males who have not 
yet thrown off the plumage of the female, as well as in the 
old ones. If we admit these Dun divers to be a distinct 
species, we can find no difference between their pretended 
females and those of the Goosander, only one kind of fe- 
male of this sort being known, and this is contrary to the 
usual analogy of the other three species, viz. the Red 
breasted Merganser, the Hooded and the Smew, all of 
whose females are well known, and bear the same com- 
parative resemblance in colour to their respective males, 
the length of crest excepted, as the female Goosander we 
