SMEW.
Y I,LEI AN WEN, Y LL EI AN BENGOOH, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH.
LOUGH DIVER. WHITE NUN.
WHITE MERGANSER. WHITE-HEADED GOOSANDER.
SMEW MERGANSER. RED-HEADED SMEW.
Mergut alkilits. PENNANT. MONTAUU.
" minuius, LINN*US.
Asiaeieiis, GMELIN.
Merganser steHalus, BKISSON.
Mergus—A Diver. Albelius. A/bus—White.
THE Smew is an exceedingly elegant and handsome bird, though
its plumage is plain, consisting only of the two primitive colours,
so to call them.
It occurs in Iceland, Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Germany,
Switzerland, Greece; also in Asia, in Persia, Kamtsehatka, and Siberia,
Asia Minor, about the Caucasus, and in Japan. It is known, though
only as a straggler, in America, in the Fur Countries, and the
United States: it belongs to Greenland.
I t frequents the coast as well as rivers and inland waters, giving
a preference, it would seem, to the latter, and not, like so many
other birds we shall soon have to give account of, to the ' deep,
deep sea.'
In Yorkshire one was killed at Sutton-upon-Dcrwent, near York,
in May, 1852, as t he Rev. George Rudston Read, Rector of that place,
has informed me: sei era! have been shot near Doncaster in hard
winters; a few near Leeds; one at Swillington, January 24th., 1838;
also at Gledhow. One, a female, at Barnsley, in January, 1854. Others
near York, the males more rarely, the females and vouug less so.
The same remark applies to Oxfordshire, and indeed no doubt every