540 | BIRDS—ANATIDA. 
GENUS MERGUS. Linneus. 
With characters of the sub-family. 
Sub-genus Mergus. Bill not shorter than the head. Head with a depressed crest. 
Tarsus two-thirds the middle toe. 
MERGUS MERGANSER Linneeus. 
Meereanser; Goosander. 
Mergus merganser, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 166, 187.—WHEATON, Food of 
Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 574; Reprint, 1875, 14.—Lanepon, Cat, Birds 
of Cin., 1877, 17; Revised List, Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 186; Reprint, 20; 
Summer Birds, ib., iii, 1880, 229. 
Mergus americanus, WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 370; Reprint, 1861, 12. 
Goosander, KIRTLAND, Fam. Visitor, i, 1850. 
Mergus merganser, LINNZUS, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 209. 
Mergus americanus, Cassin, Proc. Phila. Acad., 1853, 187. 
Nostrils nearly median ; frontal feathers reaching beyond those on sidesof bill; male 
with the head scarcely crested, glossy green; back and wings black and white, latter 
erossed by one black bar; under parts salmon-colored; length, about 24; wing, 11; 
female smaller, occipital crest better developed, but still flimsy ; head and neck reddish- 
brown; black parts of the male ashy-gray; less white on the wing; under-parts less 
tinted with salmon. 
Habitat, North America. Europe. Asia. 
Common spring and fall migrant, but in most parts of the State 
winter resident as well, and in Northern Ohio summer resident, formerly 
breeding commonly. Perhaps breeds in Middle Ohio, as I have met with 
them in pairs in June. 
Most modern writers have omitted mention of a point in the structure 
of the birds of this sub-family, which can not escape the notice of the 
taxidermist. I refer to the structural difference in the cesophagus and 
integument of the throat and neck as compared with other ducks. In 
this sub-family the skin is loose, and the gullet enormously distensible, 
this peculiar looseness of the skin is as strongly marked as in the King- 
fisher, and evidenced by the ease with which the head is withdrawn 
in skinning a specimen. I once took a male bird in winter, which 
had, to my surprise, the tail of a fish protruding from its mouth. 
As the bird did not appear to have been choking when killed, I made a 
careful examination and discovered that it had made a meal of an ordi- 
nary white sucker, the head of which had been so nearly digested by the 
stomach, that the bones were separated, and the undigested portion from 
the occiput to end of tail, which lay in the gullet and mouth measured 
seven inches. 
