The Mallard (Anas platyrhynclws) 

 By Herman C. De Groat 



Length: 20 to 24 inches. 



Range: Breeds from Pribilof Islands, northwestern Alaska, northern 

 Mackenzie, central Keewatin, and Greenland south to Lower California, southern 

 New Mexico, southern Kansas, central Missouri and southern Indiana; winters 

 from Aleutian Islands, central Alaska, central Montana, Nebraska, southern 

 Wisconsin, northern Indiana, Ohio, ]\Iaryland, south to Mexico, the Lesser 

 Antilles, and Panama. 



This fine duck is monopolized by no one country nor even continent, but 

 includes in its range both hemispheres. Its size, abundance, and excellent flavor 

 make it perhaps the most important of its family, and its value to mankind is 

 still . further enhanced by the fact that it lends itself so readily to domestication 

 that many of our domestic varieties are derived from it. Before the settlement 

 of the West the ponds and sloughs swarmed with mallards, which nested there 

 by thousands, and in fall and winter, as migrants and winter residents, covered 

 the water courses to the south. Today there is a very difYerent story to tell. 

 Many of the mallards' old breeding grounds are now farms, and the bird is now 

 represented by a few hundreds where once there were myriads. The mallard is 

 one of our most omnivorous ducks, and nothing in the way of mast, grain, or 

 small animal life comes amiss. In the far W^est it has the habit, shared to the 

 same extent by no other duck, of resorting to the stubble for waste grain, and the 

 epicure need ask for nothing more delicious than a fat corn- or wheat- fed 

 mallard. The domestication of this duck is easy, and the owners of estates with 

 suitable ponds can render good service in the cause of wild-fowl preservation by 

 raising mallards for liberation. 



Male : Head and neck glossy green ; a white ring around the neck ; breast, 

 chestnut ; belly, dull white streaked with gray lines ; back, brown ; wings, gray 

 with purple bars ; upper tail feathers black and the lowest ones recurved ; bill, 

 greenish-yellow and feet orange. 



Female : Wings like male ; belly, yellowish mixed with greyish-t)rown ; 

 other plumage dark brown with some buflf. Length, twenty-four inches. 



Nest, usually on the ground near a stream or lake, made of grass and 

 leaves, and if in the far north, lined with down. Eggs, six to ten, greenish-white, 

 2.30 by 1.60 inches. 



The Mallards are the wild species from which our domestic ducks were 

 derived. They are common in the Northern Hemisphere of both the Old and 

 the New World. In America they winter in the southern states and southward 

 and nest mainly in Canada. 



They migrate slowly in flocks in early spring and late fall, often stopping 

 for days by the way. They travel by night, and nest and feed in lakes and 



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