248 HOODED MERGANSER.
are not yellow, as is alleged by some writers, but very dark brown.
Even when feathered they retain the same colour until the beginning of
August, when they gradually change it for the dress of the adult female.
Like all the rest of the tribe, which, when far north, for the want of
hollow trees, breed on the moss or ground, the Hooded Mergansers that
remain with us nestle in the same kind of holes or hollows as the Wood
Ducks; at least I have found their nests in such situations seven or eight
times, although I never saw one of them alight on the branch of a tree,
as the birds just mentioned are wont to do. They dive as it were directly
into their wooden burrows, where on a few dried weeds and feathers of
different kinds, with a small quantity of down from the breast of the female,
the eggs are deposited. They are from five to eight, measure one
inch and three-fourths by one and three-eighths, and in other respects
perfectly resemble those of the Red-breasted Merganser.
The young, like those of the Wood Duck, are conveyed to the water
by their mother, who carries them gently in her bill; for the male takes
no part in providing for his offspring, but abandons his mate as soon as
incubation has commenced. The affectionate mother leads her young
among the tall rank grasses which fill the shallow pools or the borders of
creeks, and teaches them to procure snails, tadpoles, and insects. The eggs
are laid in May, and the young are out some time in June. On two occasions
the parents would not abandon the young, although I expected
that the noises which I made would have induced them to do so: they
both followed their offspring into the net which I had set for them. The
young all died in two days, when I restored the old birds to liberty.
The Hooded Merganser, as well as all the other species with which I
am acquainted, moves with ease on the ground, nay even runs with speed.
Those which leave the United States, take their departure from the first
of March to the middle of May; and I am induced to believe that probably
one-third of them tarry for the purpose of breeding on the margins
of several of our great lakes. When migrating, they fly at a great height,
in small loose flocks, without any regard to order. Their notes consist
of a kind of rough grunt, variously modulated, but by no means musical,
and resembling the syllables croo, croo, crook. The female repeats it six
or seven times in succession, when she sees her young in danger. The
same noise is made by the male, either when courting on the water, or as
he passes on wing near the hole where the female is laying one of her
eggs.
HOODED MERGANSER. 249
The males do not acquire the full beauty of their plumage until the
third spring, but resemble the females for the first year. In the course
of the second, the crest becomes more developed, and the white and black
markings about the head and body are more distinct. The third spring
they are complete, such as you see the bird represented in the plate.
•
MERGUS CUCULLATUS, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 207—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii.
p. 830 Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 397-
HOODED MERGANSER, MERGUS CUCULLATUS, Stcains. and Richards. Fauna Bor.
Amer. part ii. p. 463—Nutlall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 465.
Adult Male. Plate CCXXXII. Fig. 1.
Bill about the length of the head, straight, somewhat cylindrical,
deeper than broad at the base. Upper mandible with the dorsal outline
sloping gently to the middle, then straight, along the unguis curved, the
ridge broad at the base, then convex, the sides sloping at the base, convex
towards the end, the edges serrated beneath, with twenty-five toothlike
lamella? directed backwards, the unguis oblong, much curved, rounded
at the end. Nasal groove oblong, subbasal, filled by a soft membrane;
nostrils hnear-elliptical, submedial, direct, pervious. Lower mandible,
with the angle very narrow and extended to the roundish unguis, the sides
rounded, with a long narrow groove, the edges with about twenty-five lamella?.
Head of moderate size, compressed, oblong. Neck rather short, body
full and depressed. Wings small. Feet placed far behind, extremely
short; tibia bare for a short space above the joint; tarsus extremely
short, compressed, anteriorly covered with scutella, and another row on
the lower half externally, the sides reticulate. Hind toe very small, with
an inferior free membrane; anterior toes double the length of the tarsus;
second shorter than fourth, which is nearly as long as the third, all connected
by reticulated webs, of which the outer is deeply cut; the outer
toe slightly margined, the inner with a broad marginal membrane. Claws
short, considerably curved, compressed, acute, that of the middle toe with
a thin inner edge.
Plumage on the upper parts strong and imbricated, on the lower
blended and glossed; on the head and neck soft and blended, the feathers
of the upper part of the head elongated and capable of being erected into
a long compressed rounded crest, those of the shoulders very broad and