This species is about twenty-one inches in length; weight two pounds.
The bill is three inches long; the upper mandible dusky, the lower red;
irides purplish red. The head and part of the neck black, glossed with
green; on the back of the head the feathers are long, forming a sort of
pendant crest; the rest of the neck and under part of the body white;
breast ferruginous, mixed with black and white; upper part of the back
glossy black; rump marked with brown and cinereous transverse streaks;
the scapulars and wing coverts are some black and some white; quills
dusky; tail brown; legs orange; claws black.
Mr. Pennant says this species breeds in the Isle of Ely, on the shores
amongst the loose stones. They sometimes appear in the south of England
in winter, but more frequently in the north, and are said to breed in
Scotland in some of the lochs. They are found in the Russian dominions,
about the great rivers of Siberia.
They are also said to breed on the shores of Greenland, and are observed
at Hudson’s Bay in large flocks, breeding there as well as at
Newfoundland, chiefly on the islands. The nest, which is built on the
margin of lakes and rivers, is said to be made with dry grass, lined
with down; the eggs are generally eight in number, of a bluish white;
sometimes as many as thirteen in a nest, about the size of those of a
duck. The young may be distinguished from the adult, by the black band
on the wing spot.—_Montagu._
MERGUS, _s._ A genus in ornithology.
Birds of this genus have roundish slender bills, furnished at the end
with a hard, horny, crooked nail; edges of the mandibles very sharply
toothed, or serrated; the nostrils small, subovated, and placed near the
middle of the bill: tongue rough, with hard indented papillæ turned
backward; legs short; feet webbed; toes long, and the outer ones about
the same length as the middle; the head is small, but the quantity of
soft silky feathers with which it is furnished, and which they can
bristle up from the nape of the neck to the brow, give it a large
appearance. They are a broad, long-bodied, and flat-backed kind of
birds, and swim very squatly on the water, the body seeming nearly
submerged, with only the head and neck clearly seen. They are excellent
divers, remaining a long while under water, and getting to a great
distance before they appear again. They fly near the surface of the
water, and, notwithstanding the shortness of their wings, with great
swiftness, though seldom to any great distance. They devour a large
quantity of fish; and their pointed sharp-toothed, and hooked bills, are
well calculated for holding fast their slippery prey, none of which,
when once within their gripe, can escape. Latham enumerated six species
and three varieties of this genus, five of which are accounted British
birds. George Strickland, Esq., of Ropin, enumerates six species of this
genus, which are all met with in Great Britain and its adjacent isles:
the author agrees with him likewise in opinion, that much remains to be
done in order to clear up the doubts in which their history is involved,
and by which the classification of different species is confused: he
says, “The genus mergus, though only a very small tribe of birds, still
remain in the greatest obscurity, and I have not yet met with any
ornithologist, who has not, in my opinion, multiplied the number of the
species, by considering birds of this genus as of different kinds, when
they differ only in sex.” His arrangement is as follows:—