90 
GOOSANDER. 
form and serratures of its bill. The genus is characterised as 
follows : — ‘‘ 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 de- 
nominated merganser. In this country, the birds composing 
this genus are generally known by the name of fisherman, or 
fisher ducks. The whole number of known species amount 
to only nine or ten, dispersed through various quarters of the 
world ; of these, four species, of which the present is the lar- 
gest, are known to inhabit the United States. 
From the common habit of these birds in feeding almost en- 
tirely on fin and shell-fish, their flesh is held in little estima- 
tion, being often lean and rancid, both smelling and tasting 
strongly of fish ; but such are the various peculiarities 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 winter inhabi- 
tant only of the sea-shores, 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 breed- 
ing, we have no account. Mr Pennant observes, that they 
continue the whole year in the Orkneys ; 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. 
I have taken seven trout, about four or five inches in length, fi’om the stomach 
of a female. 
In Hudson’s Bay (according to Hearne) they are called sheldrakes; the name 
by which they are also distinguished by the common people in all the rivers in 
the south of Scotland. — En. 
