DUCKS, GEESE, SWANS: HOODED MERGANSER 145 
courtship play, “the puffy little drakes looking very cocky and bel¬ 
ligerent, suggesting pouter doves with their air of importance and the 
curious muscular efforts by which they produced their strange notes. 
When I first saw one perform, not knowing about his trachial air-sac, 
which Doctor Wetmore discovered and which is apparently used as a 
tympanum, I thought he was picking at his breast or had something 
stuck in his throat and was choking. With quick nods of the head that 
jerked the chin in, he pumped up and down, till finally a harsh guttural 
cluck was emitted from his smooth blue bill. Often in doing chin 
exercises the little drakes produced a labored ip-ip-ip-ip-ip-cluck '. At 
the last syllable, with the effort of expulsion, the vertical spike tail 
pressed down, and then sprang erect again” (1919, p. 8). 
Another time I happened on a peaceful conjugal scene in the safe 
harbor of the tules. The duck sitting on the water back among the 
short tules was apparently napping, while the drake just outside with 
blue bill on his ruddy breast rocked gently on the wavelets or bobbed 
like a fat cork if a breeze puffed in a bit larger wavelet from the big quiet 
lake beyond. But the best sight of all was that of a father Ruddy lead¬ 
ing off through the tule lanes followed by his mate and a line of downy 
young—a rare sight in the duck world where most females with broods, 
like female hummingbirds, appear usually in the role of widowed 
mothers. Why the Ruddy does not molt into eclipse when other ducks 
do and so can stay with his mate and help care for the young is one of 
the many questions for the student of this most individual duck to 
nvestigate. 
Additional Literature.—Bent, A. C., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 130, 152-161, 
1925.— Rockwell, R. B., Condor, XIII, 190-195, 1911 (nest).— Wetmore, Alex¬ 
ander, Condor, XX, 19-20, 1918 (trachial air-sacs); Auk, XXXVII, 245-247, 1920. 
MERGANSERS:,Subfamily Merginae 
The Mergansers, a small group of fish-eating ducks, like the Cormo¬ 
rants and Loons, are adapted to pursuing their prey under water by 
means of their feet alone, and like the diving Sea Ducks have a lobed 
hind toe. The bill is narrow, nearly cylindrical, hooked at the tip, and 
serrate—from which comes the name, Sawbills—“constructed especially 
for seizing and holding lively, active and slippery prey” (Forbush). 
HOODED MERGANSER: Lophodytes cucullatus (Linnaeus) 
Description. — Length: About 17.2-19.2 inches, wing 7.5-7.9, bill 1.5. Bill 
shorter than head, narrow, rounded, serrated. Adult male in xomter and breeding 
plumage: Black fanshaped crest with white patch (when lowered, a narrow white 
triangle opened backward, Forbush), rest of upperparts black , except for brown 
rump and tail and on sides of breast crescentic while gashings extending up from white 
underparts; sides reddish broum, crossiined with black; speculum white with two 
black bars; flight feathers dark brown; axillars and wing linings mainly white, iris 
