THE MALLARD. 125 



trast to be more complete, too, when by the side of his 

 female of plainer beauty — her plumage being rich brown 

 margined with lighter, chin and throat whitish, beauty spot 

 nearly as in the male. "Nearly cosmopolitan, and nearly 

 everywhere domesticated," breeding more or less sparingly 

 throughout the United States, and more particularly to the 

 north, the Mallard mates in winter and in early spring; and 

 builds a nest of coarse materials in the marsh, lining it, if 

 far north, with down from its breast so plentifully that the 

 eggs, some eight to a dozen, and of a delicate or sometimes 

 dingy greenish-white, can be covered with the same on 

 leaving them. 



On St. Clair Flats, where I found the Mallard breeding 

 quite commonly, the nest, which might be built in the 

 sedges over the water, but more commonly on a knoll or 

 against a log in the flooded marsh or among the bushes on 

 the highest ridges, never contained much down. If the 

 number of eggs were incomplete, or they were fresh-laid, 

 and therefore the entire nest as yet imperfect, there was no 

 down at all. The elegant green tint is quite peculiar to the 

 ^^% of this Duck. 



Unlike the Geese, but like other Ducks and the Mergan- 

 sers, as well as some other water-birds, the male now leaves 

 the female to care for her eggs and her young family alone, 

 while he, along with other heartless husbands and fathers of 

 the same kind, spends the remainder of the breeding season 

 in leisurely roaming, unless, indeed, the female lose her nest, 

 and then she goes in search of the male. 



The female meanwhile is most signally faithful to her 

 charge. She will remain on the nest till almost trodden upon, 

 and then often alighting near by, will stretch out her neck, 

 spread her tail, and flap her wings on the water, in a manner 

 equal to the arts of the little Waders when similarly disturbed. 



