Notes on the Habits of the Mallard. 541 



with perfect success. Much blood was extracted, and the man 

 came back to his employment in three or four days. The 

 second case was that of an assistant, last year, who was bitten 

 in the ankle into an artery, which happily leading to much 

 haemorrhage, prevented the absorption of the venomous fluid, 

 and enabled the man to resume work in less than a week. 

 Rattlesnakes are sluggish, and easily killed. I have repeatedly 

 endeavoured to verify Mr. Audubon's account of the rattle- 

 snake ascending trees, which has been confirmed. 



Black snakes are called M racers, " from their occasionally 

 chasing men with great ferocity. They move with astonishing 

 swiftness ; the eye can scarcely follow their rapid passage : 

 They are constrictors of great power. 



The water snake leaves the water to bask in the sun, on 

 the roads and paths. He is very fierce, and springs boldly and 

 frequently to the attack ; but is not poisonous. I have taken 

 a large trout from the stomach of one I killed on a road. 



Copper head snakes of the Alleghany Mountains are more 

 deadly in their bite than the rattlesnake. They are more 

 dreaded than the latter, because, unlike it, they give no warning 

 of their vicinity. They are also sluggish, and easily destroyed. 

 Our party killed eighteen under one large stone on the banks 

 of the Little Juniata River, near the base of the Alleghany 

 Mountains. 



313. Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, June 15. 1835. 



Art. II. Notes on the Habits of the Mallard. 

 By Charles Waterton, Esq. 



This bird yields to none of our wild water-fowl in love- 

 liness of plumage, while it far surpasses most of them in the 

 excellent flavour of its flesh. Having been completely sub- 

 jugated by man, it can now be obtained either in its enlarged 

 dimensions, acquired by superabundance of food picked up 

 at the barn-door of its owner, or in its original small and 

 compact form, on which a precarious subsistence in the field 

 of freedom has hitherto worked no visible change. 



There cannot be a doubt that the wild duck and the 

 domestic duck have had one and the same origin. They are 

 still intimate; for they breed together, and flock together, 

 and are both subject to the double annual moulting ; of which 

 more anon. The domesticated duck only loses its inclination 

 for flying, when it is bred and reared far from any large sheet 

 of water ; but where an extent of water is at hand, this bird 

 will be observed to assume more brisk and active habits. It 



