440 
ANATIDiE. 
inches on the top of a bed of all the dead weeds which 
the bird can gather in the neighbourhood. Properly 
speaking, the real nest, however, is not larger than that 
of the dusky duck, and is rather neatly formed exte¬ 
riorly of fibrous roots, and lined round the edges with 
the down of the bird. The interior is about seven inches 
and a half in diameter, and four inches in depth. There 
are seldom more than seven or eight eggs/’ 
We had hoped, during our visit to Norway, to have 
obtained the eggs of this species, especially when we 
frequently saw the birds, and sometimes in consider¬ 
able flocks, around the shores of the beautiful inlets 
of the sea, and the numerous islands which we tra¬ 
versed These flocks were, too, with one or two ex¬ 
ceptions only, composed of male birds, the partners of 
which we expected to find sitting their eggs upon the 
neighbouring woody shores; we were, however, alto¬ 
gether unsuccessful in our search, although we closely 
explored many places similar to those in which we had 
found the red-breasted merganser. From the most in¬ 
telligent of the natives we could obtain no satisfactory 
information; they were unable to solve the mystery: 
they told us they had never found the nest or eggs, 
but were convinced that the females were engaged in 
incubation somewhere in the country; and assured us 
that the males would be joined by them and their 
broods towards the close of the breeding-season. 
