blackish cheeks, occiput, back, remiges, rectrices, and two crescentic bands on each side of the breast, the bill and feet being lead-coloured. The female has a red-brown head and nape, brownish-grey upper parts, and a smaller crest than the male. _Lophodytes cucullatus_, the Hooded Merganser of North America, which has strayed to Greenland and Britain, has black upper and white under parts; the dense compressed crest has the posterior part white in the middle, the white speculum shows a pair of black bars, two black crescents mark each side of the breast, the long inner secondaries {116}are black and white, the bill is black, the feet are brown. The female has a red-brown crest, brown chest, and upper surface. The members of this Sub-family are shy and wary sea-birds, seldom found on fresh water except during the breeding season; they fly well, walk clumsily, and dive admirably, swimming low in the water. The cry is a plaintive whistle or loud harsh note; the food consists of little but fish. The Red-breasted Merganser breeds in holes in banks, or among grass and heather, laying up to ten brownish-green eggs; the Goosander deposits from eight to thirteen, of a fine creamy colour, in similar places, or in hollow trees; the Smew and the Hooded Merganser prefer the latter, and lay some eight creamy or ivory-white eggs respectively. Sub-fam. 2. _Merganettinae._–_Salvadorina waigiuensis_ of Waigiou has the head and neck blackish-brown with paler edges to the feathers, a white chin, black upper parts barred with white, and buffish-white under parts with brown abdominal spots; the sides are barred with black, and the black and green speculum is bounded by two white bands. The bill and feet are yellowish-brown. _Hymenolaemus malacorhynchus_, the Blue Duck of New Zealand, is lead-blue, tinged with olive on the head and spotted with chestnut on the breast, the outer secondaries shewing a little white and the inner black. The whitish bill has the dependent membrane (p. 111) black, the feet are brown. This peculiar and tame torrent-duck is rarely seen on the sea, though it can fly from one gorge to another; it swims and climbs the boulders with ease, has a whirring note, and feeds chiefly on insect-larvae. It deposits five creamy eggs in holes or under tussocks of grass. _Merganetta armata_, of Chili, is black above with white edges to the feathers, and rufous with black streaks below; the head and neck are white, with black crown, vertical eye-stripe, throat, chest, and streaks down the back and sides of the neck; the bronzy-green speculum has a white band on each side, the bill is yellow, the feet are reddish. _M. frenata_, of Chili, is very similar; _M. turneri_, of South Peru, has a white throat and rufous edges to the feathers of the back; _M. leucogenys_, of Peru, has a whitish throat and breast; while _M. garleppi_, of Bolivia and Tucuman, and _M. columbiana_, of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, differ but little from the last-named.