found in the same places and has the same manners with the gooseander. The RED-BREASTED MERGANSER is still smaller, weighing only two pounds. The head and neck are black, glossed with green; the rest of the neck and the belly white: the upper part of the back is glossy black; the lower parts and the rump are striated with brown and pale gray on the wings there are white bars tipped with black, and the breast is reddish, mixed with black and white. The plumage of the female is less splendid; and they differ in another respect, viz. that the male has a very full and large crest, the female only the rudiment of one. It is common on the shores of the United States as well as in Europe.

MEASURES eighteen inches from the point of the bill to the extremity. It has a fine crest upon the head, which falls down towards the back part of it, under which, on each side of the head, is a black spot: the rest of the head and neck, and the under parts of the body, are white; the back and the wings are a pleasing mixture of black and white. The tail is about three inches long, of a kind of dusky ash colour, the feathers on each side shortening gradually.

MERGANSER GENUS....DUCK GENUS.

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The female has no crest; the sides of the head red; the wings of a dusky ash colour; the throat is white. In other respects it agrees with the male.

The MINUTE MERGANSER is still less than the smew. The head is slightly crested, and of a rust colour; the back and tail are of a dusky ash colour; the breast mottled, and the belly white.

The HOODED MERGANSER is a native of North America, and peculiar to that country. It is common on the coasts of New England, and breeds in the arctic regions. It is about the size of a widgeon. The head and neck are dark brown, the former surrounded with a large round crest, the middle of which is white. The back and quills are black, the tail dusky; and the breast and belly white, undulated with black. The female is fainter in the colour of her plumage, and has a smaller crest.

THE DUCK GENUS

EMBRACES one hundred species, infinitely differing in size and plumage; many of them are rendered domestic, but a still greater proportion are in their native untamed state. All the species are distinguished by their strong flat bill, furnished at the end with an additional piece, termed a nail, and marked at the edges with lamellæ, or teeth.

Though these birds do not reject animal food when offered them, yet they can contentedly subsist upon vegetables, and seldom seek any other. They are easily provided for; wherever there is water there seems to be plenty. All the other web-footed tribes are continually voracious, continually preying. These lead more harmless lives the weeds on the surface of the water, or the insects at the bottom, the grass by the bank, or the fruits and corn in cultivated grounds, are sufficient to satisfy their easy appetites.

They breed in great abundance, and lead their young to the pool the instant they are excluded.

As their food is simple, so their flesh is nourishing and wholesome. The swan was considered as a high delicacy among the ancients; the goose was abstained from as totally indigestible. Modern manners have inverted tastes; the goose is now become the favourite; and the swan is seldom brought to table, unless for the purpose of ostentation. But at all times the flesh of the duck was in high esteem; the ancients thought even more highly of it than we do. We are contented to eat it as a delicacy; they also considered it as a medicine: and Plutarch assures us, that Cato kept his whole family in health, by feeding them with duck whenever they threatened to be out of order.

So much difference is there between this bird when on land and in the water, that it is hardly to be supposed the same, for in the latter, no bird can possibly exceed it for beauty and majestic appearance. When it ascends from its favourite element, its motions are awkward, and its

neck is stretched forward with an air of stupidity; it has, indeed, the air of being only a larger sort of goose; but when seen smoothly gliding along the water, displaying a thousand graceful attitudes, and moving at pleasure without the smallest apparent effort, there is not a more beautiful figure in all nature. In its form, we find no broken or harsh lines; in its motions, nothing constrained or abrupt, but the roundest contours, and the easiest transitions; the eye wanders over the whole with unalloyed pleasure, and with every change of position every part assumes a new grace. It will swim faster than a man can walk.

This bird has long been rendered domestic; and it is now a doubt whether there be any of the tame kind in a state of nature. The colour of the tame Swan is entirely white, and it generally weighs full twenty pounds. Under the feathers is a very thick soft down, which is made an article of commerce, for purposes of both use and ornament. The windpipe sinks down into the lungs in the ordinary manner; and it is the most silent of all the feathered tribe; it can do nothing more than hiss, which it does on receiving any provocation. In these respects it very different from the wild or whistling Swan.

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The beautiful bird is as delicate in its appetites as it is elegant in its form. Its chief food is corn, bread, herbs growing in the water, and roots and seeds, which are found near the margin. At the time of incubation it prepares a nest in some retired part of the where there is an islet in the stream. of water plants, long grass, and sticks: female assist in forming it with great assiduity. The Swan lays seven or eight white eggs, one every other day, much larger than those of a goose, with a hard, and sometimes a tuberous shell. It sits six weeks before its young

bank, and chiefly This is composed and the male and

are excluded; which are ash coloured when they first leave the shell, and for some months after. It is not a little dangerous to approach the old ones, when their little family are feeding around them. Their fears as well as their pride seem to take the alarm, and when in danger, the old birds carry off the young ones on their back. A female has been known to attack and drown a fox, which was swimming towards her nest: they are able to throw down and trample on youths of fifteen or sixteen; and an old Swan can break the leg of a man with a single stroke of its wing.

Swans were formerly held in such great esteem in England, that, by an act of Edward the Fourth, none, except the son of the king, was permitted to keep a Swan, unless possessed of a freehold to the value of five marks a year. By a subsequent act, the punishment for taking their eggs was imprisonment for a year and a day, and a fine at the king's will. At present they are not valued for the delicacy of their flesh: but numbers are still preserved for their beauty. Many may be seen on the Thames, where they are esteemed royal property, and it is accounted felony to steal their eggs. On this river, as far as the conservancy of it belongs to the city of London, they are under the care of the corporation; and at certain times the lord mayor, aldermen, &c. proceed up the Thames, to what is commonly called the Swan hopping, to mark the young birds. The Swan is a long-lived bird, and sometimes attains the age of more than a hundred years.

The WILD OF WHISTLING SWAN, though so strongly resembling this in colour and form, is yet a different bird; for it is very differently formed within. The wild Swan is less than the tame, almost a fourth; for as the one