214 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
singular alteration. About the end of May the breast and back of 
the drake begin to change colour ; in a few days the curled feathers 
of the tail drop out, and grey feathers begin to appear in the lovely 
green plumage round the eyes; and, by the 23rd of June, scarcely 
one green feather remains. By the 6th of July all the green feathers 
have disappeared, and the male has assumed the female garb, but 
darker in colour. In August this new plumage begins to drop off, 
and by the middle of October the drake again reappears in all the 
rich magnificence of its former dress. 
The Mallard (Fig. 83) forms the original stock from which our 
SSS 
Fig. 83.—Wild Ducks or Mallard. 
Domestic Ducks have sprung. Their favourite resorts are to be 
found in those hyperborean regions whose rigorous climate renders 
it uninhabitable by man. T he rivers of Lapland, Greenland, and 
Siberia are sometimes literally covered with them; and, in the month 
of May, their nests are there found in quantities which imagination 
can scarcely picture. At the first approach of frost their earliest 
harbingers begin to appear among us, and about the middle of October 
these travelling bands arrive in increasing numbers. 
Wild Ducks have a sustained and rapid flight. With powerful 
wings they raise themselves either from the land or water, and mount 
perpendicularly above the summits of the loftiest trees, when they 
take a more horizontal course, maintaining themselves at a great 
height, and making long journeys without rest. ‘Triangular columns 
