560 THE FEATUKUED TKIDES. 



THE WILD DUCK.* 



The Wild Duck, or Mallard, is nearly two feet in length, two feet ten inches in extent 

 of wino-s, and weighs from two and a-half to three pounds. The bill is of a greenish- 

 yellow colour ; the head and upper part of the neck are of a glossy changeable green, 

 terminated in the middle of the neck by a white collar, with which it is nearly encircled. 

 The scapulars are white, barred, or rather undulated, with minute lines of brown ; the 

 back is brown, and the rump black, glossed with green. On the wing-coverts, two 

 transverse white streaks, edged with black, enclose a broad stripe of a lucid violet-green 

 colour. The lower part of the neck and breast is of a chestnut colour ; the belly is pale 

 gray, crossed with numerous transverse dusky lines. The tail consists of twenty feathers, 

 and is pointed in shape. The legs are orange. The female bird is very plain. 



Wild ducks inhabit Europe, Asia, and America. In summer they frequent the lakes 

 and marshes of the north, and in autumn they migrate southward in large bodies, 

 spreading themselves over the lakes and marshes of more temperate latitudes. Consider- 

 able numbers of them return northward in spring ; but many straggling pairs, as well as 

 former colonists, stay in England to rear their young, which become natives, and remain 

 throughout the j'ear in the marshy tracts of the British isles. 



The change in the mallard is thus characteristically described by Mr. Waterton : — 

 " At the close of the breeding-season the drake imdergoes a very remarkable change of 

 plumage ; on viewing it, all speculation 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 the cause of this strange phenomenon. To llini r.lone, 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 penetrating 

 eye to distinguish the one from the other. About the 4th 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 23rd 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 disappeared, and the male has received 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 magnihcence of dress, than which scarcely 

 anything tliroughout the whole wide field of nature can be seen more lovely or better 

 arranged to churra 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 ^fay to the middle of October, and saw them every -day during the 

 whole of their captivity. Perhaps the moulting in other individuals may vary a trifle 

 with regard to time. Tlius we may say tliat once every year, for a very short period, the 

 drake goes, as it were, into an eclipse, so that fiotn the early part of the montli of .July, 

 to about the first week in August, neithei' in (lie imultiv yiirds of civilised nuin, nor 

 through the vast expanse of ]Vatur(>'s wildest range, can tlici'(< be found a drake 

 in that plumage ^yhich, at all other .seasons of the year, is so remarkably splendid and 

 diversified." 



Naturally very shy birds, wild ducks fly at a considerable height in th" air, in the 

 form of a wedge or tiiangle. Before tlicy alight on any spot, they describe several turns 



* Anas Bobcli.i.s. 



