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SPECIES 4. MERGUS CUCULLdTUS.
               HOODED MERGANSER.
                 [Plate LXIX. -Fig. 1.]
L'Harle hupe de Virginie, BRiss. vi, p. 258. 8.-Pt. Ent. 935,
  male, 936 femacle.-L'Harle couronne. BUFF. VIII, P. 280.-
  Round crested Duck. EDW. p1, 360.-CATETB. i, pl. 94.- .rct.
  Zool. JXo. 467.--LATH. Syn. IO.p. 426.-PEALE'S Museunt, .No.
  293,0.
  THIS species on the seacoast is usually called the Hairy head.
They are more common however along our lakes and fresh wa-
ter rivers than near the sea; tracing up creeks, and visiting mill
ponds, diving perpetually for their food. In the creeks and
rivers of the southern states they are, very frequently seen dur-
ing the winter. Like the Red breasted they are migratory,
the manners, food, and places of resort of both being very much
alike.
  The Hooded Merganser is eighteen inches in length, and two
feet in extent; bill blackish red, narrow, thickly toothed, and
furnished with a projecting nail at the extremity; the head is
ornamented with a large circular crest, which the bird has the
faculty of raising or depressing at pleasure; the fore part of this,
as far as the eye, is black, thence to the hind head white and
elegantly tipt with black; it is composed of two separate rows
of feathers, radiating from each side of the head, and which
may be easily divided by the hand; irides golden; eye very small;
neck black, which spreads to and over the back; part of the
lesser wing coverts very pale ash, under which the greater co-
verts and secondaries form four alternate bars of black and
white, tertials long, black, and streaked down the middle with