Up the creek the Mergansers proceed, washing their bodies by short plunges, and splashing up the water about them. Then they plume themselves, and anoint their feathers, now and then emitting a low grunting note of pleasure. And now they dive in search of minnows, which they find in abundance, and which no doubt prove delicious food to the hungry travellers. At length, having satisfied their appetite, they rise on wing, fly low over the creek with almost incredible velocity, return to the broad stream, rove along its margin until they meet with a clean sand-beach, where they alight, and where, secure from danger, they repose until the return of day. A sly Racoon may, when in search of mussels, chance to meet with the sleeping birds, and surprise one of them; but this rarely happens, for they are as wary and vigilant as their enemy is cunning, and were the prowler to depend upon Hooded Mergansers for food, he would be lean enough.
This bird ranges throughout the United States during winter, content with the food it meets with in the bays and estuaries of the eastern coast, and on the inland streams. The dam of the Pennsylvania miller is as agreeable to it as that of the Carolina rice-planter. The Le High and Brandy-wine Creek have their fishes, as well as the waters of Bear Grass or Bayou Sara. Nay, the numerous streams and pools of the interior of the Floridas are resorted to by this species, and there I have found them full of life and gaiety, as well as on the Missouri, and on our great lakes. When the weather proves too cold for them they move southwards many of them removing towards Mexico.
The Hooded Merganser is a most expert diver, and so vigilant that at times it escapes even from the best percussion gun. As to shooting at it with a flint lock, you may save yourself the trouble unless you prevent it from seeing the flash of the pan. If you wound one, never follow it: the bird, when its strength is almost exhausted, immerses its body, raises the point of its bill above the surface, and in this manner makes its way among the plants, until finding some safe retreat along the shore, it betakes itself to it, and there remains, so that you may search for it in vain, unless you have a good dog. Even on wing it is not easily shot. If on a creek ever so narrow, it will fly directly towards its mouth, although you may be standing knee-deep in the middle. It comes up like a ball, rises and passes over head with astonishing speed, and if you shoot at it, do not calculate upon a hit. You may guess how many one may shoot in a day.
When I removed from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, the Hooded Merganser was not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Louisville during summer, and I told Wilson so. On several occasions I caught the young with a partridge net; and let me assure you, Reader, that they 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, crooh. 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.
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, Swains. and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 463.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 465.