Plate CCXXXIII. Male and Female.
Male with an elongated, compressed, rounded crest, the tail with
eighteen feathers; bill black, feet yellowish-brown; upper part of the
head, back, smaller wing-coverts, quills, and tail brownish-black;
sides of the head, upper half of neck all round, the broad extremities
of the large feathers on the shoulders, the scapulars, inner
secondaries, and larger wing-coverts, greenish-black; a broad patch of
white behind the eye, very conspicuous in the erected crest; lower
part of neck and breast also white, as are the speculum and the
central part of the inner secondaries; sides beautifully marked with
undulated transverse lines of yellowish-brown and brownish-black;
lower tail-coverts whitish, similarly undulated. Female much smaller,
with the crest less elongated, and of looser texture; bill
brownish-black, towards the base orange; upper part of head, including
the crest, yellowish-brown; chin whitish; upper part of neck all
round, and sides of head greyish-brown; general colour of the back,
upper surface of wings, tail, and sides, blackish-brown, the feathers
edged with paler. Young, when fledged, like the female, but with the
crest shorter.
_Male_, 19, 26. _Female_, 17-1/2, 24.
Breeds sparingly in South Carolina, along the Mississippi, Ohio, and
the Great Lakes, as well as further northward. Abundant, during autumn
and winter, on all the western and southern waters; rarer in the
Middle Atlantic Districts.
Mergus cucullatus, Bonap. Syn. p. 397.
Hooded Merganser, Mergus cucullatus, Wils. Amer. Orn. v. viii.
p. 79.
Mergus cucullatus, Hooded Merganser, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor.
Amer. v. ii. p. 463.
Hooded Merganser, Nutt. Man. v. ii. p. 465.
Hooded Merganser, Mergus cucullatus, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iii.
p. 246; v. v. p. 619.