RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. 245 
elude the sportsman or his dog”, by diving’ and coming 
up at a great distance, raising the bill only above 
water, and dipping down again with the greatest silence. 
The young males of a year old are often found in the 
plumage of the female; their food consists of small 
fry, and various kinds of shell-fish. 
The red-breasted merganser is said, by Pennant, to 
breed on Loch Mari in the county of Ross, in North 
Britain, and also in tbe Isle of Hay. Latham informs 
us, that it inhabits most parts of the north of Europe 
on the continent, and as high as Iceland ; also in the 
Russian dominions about the great rivers of Siberia, 
and the Lake Baikal. Is said to be frequent in 
Greenland, where it breeds on the shores. The inha- 
bitants often take it by darts thrown at it, especially 
in August, being then in moult. At Hudson’s Bay, 
according to Hutchins, they come in pairs about the 
beginning of June, as soon as the ice breaks up, and 
build soon after their arrival, chiefly on dry spots of 
ground in the islands ; lay from eight to thirteen white 
eggs, the size of those of a duck ; the nest is made of 
withered grass, and lined with the down of the breast. 
The young are of a dirty brown, like young goslings. 
In October they all depart southward to the lakes, 
where they may have open water. 
This species is twenty-two inches in length, and 
thirty-two in extent ; the bill is two inches and three 
quarters in length, of the colour of bright sealing wax, 
ridged above with dusky ; the nail at the tip, large, 
blackish, and overhanging ; both mandibles are thickly 
serrated ; irides, red ; head, furnished with a long hairy 
crest, which is often pendent, but occasionally erected ; 
this, and part of the neck, is black, glossed with green ; 
the neck under this for two or three inches, is pure 
white, ending in a broad space of reddish ochre spotted 
with black, which spreads over the lower part of the 
neck and sides of the breast ; shoulders, back, and 
tertials, deep velvety black, the first marked with a 
number of singular roundish spots of white ; scapulars, 
white ; wing-coverts, mostly white, crossed by two 
