THE SMEW, OR WHITE NUN. 
247 
288. MERGUS ALBELLUS , LINN^US AND WILSON. 
THE SMEW, OR WHITE NUN. 
WILSON, PLATE LXXI. FIG. IV. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
This is another of those mergansers commonly known 
in this country by the appellation of fishermen, fisher 
ducks, or divers. The present species is much more 
common on the coast of New England than farther to 
the south. On the shores of New Jersey it is very 
seldom met with. It is an admirable diver, and can 
continue for a long time under water. Its food is 
small fry, shell-fish, shrimps, &c. In England, as with 
us, the smew is seen only during winter; it is also 
found in France, in some parts of which it is called la 
Piette , as in parts of England it is named the magpie 
diver. Its breeding place is doubtless in the Arctic 
regions, as it frequents Iceland ; and has been observed 
to migrate with other mergansers and several kinds of 
ducks up the river Wolga in February.* 
The smew, or white nun, is nineteen inches in length, 
and two feet three inches in extent ; bill, black, formed 
very much like that of the red-breasted merganser, but 
not so strongly toothed ; irides, dark ; head, crested ; 
crown, white ; hindhead, black ; round the area of the 
eye, a large oval space of black ; whole neck, breast, 
and belly, white, marked on the upper and lower part 
of the breast with a curving line of black ; back, black ; 
scapulars, white, crossed with several faint dusky bars ; 
shoulder of the wing and primaries, black ; secondaries 
and greater coverts, black, broadly tipt with white; 
across the lesser coverts, a large band of white ; sides 
and flanks, crossed with waving lines ; tail, dark ash ; 
legs and feet, pale bluish slate. 
The female is considerably less than the male ; the 
bill, a dark lead colour; crest of the same peculiar 
* Z)ec. Puss, ii, p. 145. 
