46 BULLETIN 12G, UNITED STATES NATIONAI^ MUSEUM. 



The Houston (Texas) Post of January 29, 1908, asserted that during the previous 

 week five citizens while hunting came upon a small lake into which the fowls were 

 flocking in great numbers. Using their rep<'ating guns and acting by a prearranged 

 signal they flushed the game, emptied their guns, and gathered 107 killed not count- 

 ing the wounded and missing. The birds were mainly mallards. 



The foregoing quotation will serve to indicate the enormous slaugh- 

 ter which has been going on among our game birds, of which the 

 mallard is merely a fair sample. This was due mainly to the increas- 

 ing numbers of gunners and the improved effectiveness of firearms. 



Owing to the prohibition of market hunting, the curtailing of the 

 shooting season, and the establishment of breeding reservations and 

 fall and M'inter sanctuaries, this ra])id extermination has been checked 

 and the birds are now holding their own and are even increasing in 

 some places. The big reservations on the coast of Louisiana show 

 the beneficial effect of protection. Here the mallards and other ducks 

 gather in great numbers in the winter, feeding in the ponds or patches 

 of open water in the marsh, or rising, when disturbed, in immense 

 flocks with a mighty roar of thousands of wings. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — >iorthern })ortions of the Northern Hemisphere. 

 In North America mainly west of Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes. 

 A few breed in Greenland, but those are considered subspecifically 

 distinct Anas platyrhyncha conhoschas Brehm, and are apparently 

 resident. East sparingly to eastern Ontario, central New York 

 (Cayuga County), northwestern Pennsyhania (Erie and formerly 

 Williamsport), and central New Jersey (Passaic County and Burling- 

 ton (-ounty). South to noi'tliern Virginia (upper James River) 

 southern Ohio, southwestern Indiana (Knox County), southeastern 

 Illinois (Wabash County), central Missouri (Johnson County), east- 

 ern Kansas (Johnson ('ounty) , southern New Mexico, and northern 

 Lower California (San Pedro Martir Mountains), West to the Pacific 

 coasts of the United States, Canada, and Alaska, and west in the 

 Aleutian Islands to Tanaga Island and probably farther. North to 

 northern Alaska (Kotzebue Sound), the Arctic coast of Mackenzie 

 (Mackenzie Delta and Anderson River), and the coast of Hudson Bay. 

 In the Eastern Hemisphere it breeds in Iceland, throughout Europe 

 (south of the Arctic Circle), in the Azores, and in northern Africa ; 

 in Asia from Turkestan to China, Japan, Chosen, the Kurile Islands, 

 Kamchatka, and the Commander Islands, 



Wi?iter range. — Practically all of North America, south of Canada. 

 East to the Atlantic coast, the Bahama Islands, and rarely to the 

 Lesser Antilles (St. Vimnrnt and Grenada). South to central Florida 

 (Cape Canaveral), the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas, and to 

 southern Mexico (Jalapa and Colima), North along the Pacific coast 



