Merganser americanus. Lake Umbagog, New England. 1898. As we were sitting on the rocks at the end of Osgood's Aug.28. Point we saw a number of Sheldrake round the S.W. extremity a quarter of of Pine Point about half-a-mile away. As they were heading towards us we decided to sit still and see if they would not come past us, watching them the while through our glasses. We might have concealed ourselves easily enough but I wanted to test the truth of a statement that Mr.Sherman had made to the effect that Sheldrake will not notice a man in the most exposed situation provided he remains motionless. These birds came on rapidly following every indentation of the rocky shore, now strung out in single file, next scattered about or huddled closely together, occasionally thrashing the water with their wings and frequently diving. I had several opportunities for watching the thrashing performance closely and I am satisfied that on this occasion at least, it was not performed, as has been suggested, for the purpose of driving fish in shore. The birds did not first arrange themselves in a semicircle as had been described (in Forest and Stream) nor did they move towards the shore while beating their wings. On the contrary they simply kept on their way (once in single file), first beating their wings and then just ducking under for a moment at the end of the "thrashing". The whole thing seemed to me to be done in sheer 103