GOOSANDER. 
241 
floating* ice. It appears to live chiefly upon fish, which 
its sharp toothed and hooked bill is admirably calculated 
for securing*. It rises from the water with considerable 
fluttering*, its wings being small and short ; but, when 
in the air, it flies with great swiftness. It is a singular 
circumstance, that those goosanders which are seen in 
the Delaware and Schuylkill, in the vicinity of Phila- 
delphia, are principally old males. 
The male goosander is twenty-six inches in length, 
and thirty-seven inches in breadth ; the bill, to the angles 
of the mouth, is three inches long, nearly an inch thick 
at the base, strongly toothed on both mandibles, the upper 
mandible with two corresponding rows of fine teeth 
within, the lower divided to the nail, and connected by 
a thin elastic membrane, which admits of considerable 
expansion, to facilitate the passage of fish ; nostrils, 
subovate, broader on the hind part ; the bill is black 
above and below, its sides crimson ; the tongue is long, 
pointed, furnished with a double row of papillae running 
along the middle, and has a hairy border ; irides, golden ; 
the frontlet, lores, area of the eyes, and throat, jet black ; 
head, crested, tumid, and of a beautiful glossy bottle 
green colour, extending nearly half way down the neck, 
the remainder of which, with the exterior part of the 
scapulars, the lesser coverts, the greater part of the 
secondaries, the tertials and lining of the wings, w hite, 
delicately tinged with cream colour ; the breast and 
whole lower parts are of a rich cream colour ; the upper 
part of the back, and the interior scapulars, a fine glossy 
black ; the primaries and exterior part of the secondaries, 
with their coverts, are brownish black ; the longer part 
of nearly all the coverts of the secondaries, w hite, 
the upper part, black, forming a bar across the wing ; 
the shoulder of the wing is brownish ash, the feathers 
tipt with black ; the middle and lower parts of the 
back and tail-coverts, ash, the plumage centred wdth 
brown ; tail, brownish ash, rounded, composed of 
eighteen feathers, and extends about three inches 
beyond the wings ; the flanks are marked wdth waving, 
finely dotted lines of ash on a white ground ; tertials on 
VOL, in. Q, 
