THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
MERGANSERS 
L ike the diving-ducks, the mergansers have the hind toe very 
widely lobed (see fig. 4, p. 290). The bill is narrow, lengthened, 
cylindrical, and strongly toothed, not exceeding 0 ‘3 of an inch 
in width at the tip, which is strongly hooked. The legs are 
placed very far back, enabling the birds to dive and swim with 
ease, but rendering their gait on land very awkward. The 
plumage in the two sexes is different during the greater part of the year, 
except when the adult male assumes the eclipse-plumage after the breed- 
ing-season. 
GOOSANDER 
MERGUS MERGANSER 
(Plate XXX, Figs. 7 and 7a) 
Mergus merganser, Gould, Birds Europe, v, pi. 384 (1837) ; Dresser, Birds Europe, vi, p. 685, 
pi. 452 (1875) ; Hume & Marshall, Game Birds Ind., iii, p. 299, pi. 40 (1880) ; Lilford, Col. 
Fig. Brit. Birds, part xxiii, pi. (1893) ; Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 471 (1899). 
Merganser castor, Salvador!, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, p. 472 (1895). 
DULT male. — Head and upper part of the neck black, glossed 
with oil -green on the top of the head and back of the 
i neck; the occipital feathers considerably lengthened but 
not forming a conspicuous crest except when erected; 
X lower half of the neck, upper mantle and outer scapulars 
JL bL. white; upper back and long inner scapulars deep black; 
lower back, rump, median upper tail-coverts and tail ashy-grey; the 
shorter lateral rump -feathers and coverts white, finely vermiculated 
with black; breast and abdomen white, more or less tinged with salmon- 
pink (most conspicuous when the bird is freshly killed); lesser and median 
wing-coverts white; greater secondary coverts widely tipped with white; 
median and long outer secondary quills white, the latter edged with black; 
inner secondary and primary quills brownish -black, the former whitish 
on the inner web; axillaries white. Iris deep red or reddish-brown; bill 
vermilion-red, the ridge of the upper mandible and the nail blackish; 
376 
