Mercurial ointment is employed in veterinary practice as an application to callous swellings or enlarged joints. It is mixed with camphor in those cases, and is certainly much more efficacious when converted into a blister by the addition of cantharides or euphorbium. In this state it is a good remedy for bog spavin or other swellings of the hock joint.
Mercurial ointment is said to be an effectual remedy for the scab in sheep, and is often an ingredient in ointments for the mange.—White.
Mercury, s. A mineral or metallic fluid vulgarly called quicksilver, and distinguished from all other metals by its extreme fusibility, which is such that it does not assume the solid state until cooled to the thirtieth degree below 0 on Fahrenheit’s thermometer; and of course is always fluid in temperate climates. It is volatile, and rises in small portions at the common temperature of the air. It readily combines with gold, silver, lead, tin, bismuth, and zinc, and on that account is usefully employed in silvering looking-glasses, making barometers and thermometers, and for various other purposes.—Crabbe.
Mere, s. A pool, commonly a large pool or lake; a boundary.
Merganser, s. (Mergus serrator, Linn.)
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:—