THK GOOSANDER. 
271 
SO hard ; the general tints of tlie down much like those of the 
parents’ featliers ; wings witlioiit feathers, and extremely 
small ; tarsi and toes pale brownish orange, large and strong ; 
the membranes darker ; claws light brown, paler at base. 
The lovely tint of salmon-colonr upon the breast of the male 
begins to fade soon after death, so that in stuffed skins there 
is no trace of it. So greatly does its absence remind me of an 
unfinished picture, that I consider it no more a deception to 
rub a little powdered colour upon the parts than to introduce 
glass eyes into the head, or to paint the bills and feet. 
Once in the end of May I noticed at a house at Gudyer, in 
Yell, the feet and wings of a Merganser drake, and found upon 
inquiry that the people had lately dined off the body of it ; but 
even they acknowledged that it was vara fishy food.” 
THE GOOSANDEE. 
Mergus castor. 
This species is well known in Orkney, where it is a regular 
winter visitor, but it is very rarely observed in Shetland. I 
have only seen it twice. On the one occasion I saw a solitary 
bird sitting quite inactive in deep water, about two or three 
hundred yards from the shore. On the other, there were five 
Goosanders upon a piece of wet sand at Balta. They fiew 
away as the boat approached, rising rather high, and going 
directly southward, as if bent on a distant flight ; nor did they 
show any signs of descending so long as they were in sight. 
As this occurred about the end of October, I concluded that 
they were on their way from the north, and had merely 
alighted upon the island for the purpose of resting themselves. 
