544 Notes on the Habits of the Mallard. 



use the expression. Hence I conclude that there is mutual 

 love in the exhibition, and that a union is formed. 



When these large flocks of wild-fowl take their departure 

 in spring for the distant regions of the north, about a dozen 

 pairs of mallards remain here to breed. Sometimes you may 

 find a solitary nest of these birds near the water's edge, or a 

 few yards from it, on a sloping bank thickly clothed with 

 underwood : but, in general, they seem to prefer the recesses 

 of a distant wood for the purposes of their incubation ; though 

 we have had an instance of one building its nest in a tree, 

 and of another which hatched its young on an old ruin. [IV., 

 519.] Last year a domesticated wild duck had a brood of 

 ten young ones in the month of May ; and on the 27th day 

 of October the same bird brought out a second brood of 

 eleven. In an evil hour they strayed too far from the water. 

 A tame raven met them on their travels, and killed every bird. 



At the close of the breeding season, the drake undergoes 

 a very remarkable change of plumage : on viewing it, all spe- 

 culation on the part of the ornithologist is utterly confounded ; 

 for there is not the smallest clue afforded him, by which he 

 may be enabled to trace out the cause of the strange pheno- 

 menon. To Him alone, who has ordered the ostrich to 

 remain on the earth, and allowed the bat to range through 

 the ethereal vault of heaven, is known why the drake, for a 

 very short period of the year, should be so completely clothed 

 in the raiment of the female, that it requires a keen and pene- 

 trating eye to distinguish the one from the other. About the 

 24th of May, the breast and back of the drake exhibit the 

 first appearance of a change of colour. In a few days after 

 this, the curled feathers above the tail drop out, and gray 

 feathers begin to appear amongst the lovely green plumage 

 which surrounds the eyes. Every succeeding day now brings 

 marks of rapid change. By the 23d of June scarcely one 

 single green feather is to be seen on the head and neck of the 

 bird. By the 6th of July every feather of the former brilliant 

 plumage has made its disappearance, and the male has re- 

 ceived a garb like that of the female, though of a somewhat 

 darker tint. In the early part of August this new plumage 

 begins to drop off* gradually, and by the 10th of October 

 the drake will appear again in all his rich magnificence of 

 dress ; than which scarcely any thing throughout the whole 

 wild field of nature can be seen more lovely, or better arranged 

 to charm the eye of man. This description of the change of 

 plumage in the mallard has been penned down with great 

 care. I enclosed two male birds in a coop, from the middle 

 of May to the middle of October, and saw them every day 

 during the whole of their captivity. Perhaps the moulting 



