438 "The Hifiory of A N I M A L §<* 
The whole breaft and belly are of a livid or dufky bluifh colour, but it is darker 
toward the top of the bread:, and it becomes whitifh toward the lower part of the 
belly. 
The beak is very remarkable, both in figure and in bignefs; it is of the length o£ 
the middle finger, and is confiderably thick and robuft; but it is not flatted, as in the 
duck, but rounded on the upper part, and, though it runs flraight nearly to the point, 
it is there hooked and turned down : the under chap is black throughout; the upper 
one is alfo black along the middle, but it is reddifh at the edges, and black as jet at the 
hooked extremity, and is all the way denticulated along both fides } the denticulations 
are of a fubulated form, and pointed inward : the infide of the mouth is yellow, 
as is alfo the tongue. 
The feathers of the head are long, efpecially toward the hinder part, and they (land 
loofe, and form a kind of creft, which hangs down over the upper part of the neck, 
though but a little way : the noftrils are large, and the iris of the eye is of a blood- 
red. 
The legs are long and robufi:, they are of a flrong red : the feet are webbed, and 
the hinder toe is increafed in breadth by a membrane. 
The female of this fpecies, which our people call the Dundiver, or Sparlin-fowf, 
has the head fmaller than the male, and the feathers do not ftand fo loofe on it: it is 
of a brown colour, and has fome approach toward a creft, but not fo much as in the 
male: the upper part of the throat is whitifh; the back is altogether grey : the breaft 
and belly are of a bluifh or livid colour, as in the male, but paler : the long feathers 
of the wings are variegated, nearly in the fame manner as in the male ; the beak alfo 
is entirely of the fame colour, figure, and fize : the wings are rather fhorter than in 
the male j and the tail alfo is fhorter, and of a fomewhat paler colour. 
The bird is frequent in many parts of Europe, and has been defcribed by almoft all 
the authors who have written on this fubjed. It frequents frefli waters, and feeds on 
fifh: it does not often take flight, but, by the fwift motion of it’s wings on the furface 
of the water, makes way with great rapidity. Aldrovand, Willughby, and Ray call 
it Merganfer ; Gefner, Mergus cirratus longirofler ; Scheffer, who describes it in his 
hiftory of Lapland, Knipa $ and Bellonius, Harle. 
Mergus crifta dependente , capita nigro , maculis fer~ 
rugineis. Xfjt l01t§4te&fe£S)S 
j Vhe Mergus, with a hanging creft , with a black HDllCli* 
heady fpotted with brown . 
This is nearly of the fize of the common duck, and is not unlike it in the form of 
it's body, but the beak is perfectly that of the Mergus-kind : the head is fmall, but 
the feathers ftand fo loofely on it, that it appears confiderably large : the eyes are fmall 
but bright, and of a piercing afped j the beak is very long, narrow, convex on the 
- upper part, and hooked at the extremity, and dentated all along the fides: the head is 
of a deep gloffy black, but fpotted all over with a ferrugineons brown : the creft is not 
long, but hangs from the hinder part of the head : the breaft is of a bright grey, fpot¬ 
ted all over with innumerable minute dots of black; the belly is white, and the tides 
are undulated with white and black : the back is altogether black; the long feathers of 
the wings are alfo black, but the fhorter or covering feathers are white, only that the 
lower feries, or thofe which fall immediately over the long ones, have their extremi¬ 
ties black y this difpofition of the white feathers forms together a fingle, broad, white 
line on each wing: the tail is fhort and brown ; the legs are robuft, but not long, and 
the feet are large and webbed. 
The 
