INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS. 



Mallard. 



Alias hoscas. Nil-sir, Hindustani. 



Althouf:;h mallard are far from being generally distributed 

 over our Eastern Empire, as being the wild ducks of the Northern 

 Hemisphere generally, and the ancestors of most of our tame 

 ducks, they deserve to head the list of typical ducks, being also 

 themselves the type of all and exemplifying several points which 

 must be referred to by anyone dealing with the group. 



The lovely green head, white collar, chocolate breast, curled 

 black tail, and splendid wing-bar of blue and white are so 

 distinctive of the mallard drake that little need be said about his 

 plumage, which has for the most part a sober pencilled-grey 

 coloration, beautifully setting off the brighter tints. But the 

 female, whose plumage, as is usual in the most typical ducks, 

 is of a mottled-brown tint, is naturally much like several others ; 

 her distinguishing mark is the blue, white-edged wing-bar which 

 she shares with the drake. This blue ribbon-mark will distinguish 

 her from all our ducks but the Chinese grey duck or yellow nib 

 {Alias zonorhyncha), which bird has a black bill with a yellow 

 tip, and is much greyer in tint, with a dark sooty belly. The 

 bill of the female mallard is dull orange, with a large, dull black 

 patch occupying most of the centre part ; the drake's is a sort of 

 sage-green, sometimes verging on yellow. 



This point is worth mentioning, because when the drake goes 

 into undress plumage the colour of his bill does not change as in 

 some species at this time. In plumage the mallard in this 

 "eclipse" stage is very like the female, but not exactly, the crown 

 of the head and the lower back down to the tail being black, not 



