Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/313

to time, in any part of the village, the sound of a gun fired at ducks. Yesterday I was wishing that I could find a dead duck floating in the water, as I had found musk-rats and a hare, and now I see something bright and reflecting the light from t{ne edge of the alders five or six rods off. Can it be a duck? I can hardly believe my eyes. I am near enough to see its green head and neck. I am delighted to find a perfect specimen of the Mergus, merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast Day sportsmen. I take a small flattened shot from its wing, flattened against the wing-bone, apparently. The wing is broken, and it is shot through the head. It is a perfectly fresh and very beautiful bird. As I raise it, I get sight of its long, slender vermilion bill (color of red sealing-wax), and its clean, bright orange legs and feet, and then of its perfectly smooth and spotlessly pure white breast and belly, tinged with a faint salmon, or a delicate buff inclining to salmon. . . . . I afterwards took three small shot from it which were flattened against the bill's base and perhaps the quills' shafts. This, according to Wilson, is one of the mergansers or fisher-ducks, of which there are nine or. ten species, and we have four in America. It is the largest of these four, . . . . called water pheasant, sheldrake, fisherman