176 ANATID.C. 



to remain on the earth, and allowed the Bat to range through 

 the ethereal vault of heaven, is known why the Drake, for a 

 very short period of the year, should be so completely clothed 

 in the raiment of the female, that it requires a keen and 

 penetrating eye to distinguish the one from the other. 

 About the 24th of May, the breast and back of the Drake 

 exhibit the first appearance of a change of colour. In a few 

 days after this, the curled feathers above the tail drop out, 

 and grey feathers begin to appear amongst the lovely green 

 plumage which surrounds the eyes. Every succeeding day 

 now brings marks of rapid change. By the 23rd of June 

 scarcely one single green feather is to be seen on the head 

 and neck of the bird. By the 6th of July every feather of 

 the former brilliant plumage has disappeared, and the male 

 has received a garb like that of the female, though of a some- 

 what darker tint. In the early part of August this new 

 plumage begins to drop off gradually, and by the 10th of 

 October the Drake will appear again in all his rich magni- 

 ficence of dress ; than which scarcely anything throughout 

 the whole wild field of nature can be seen more lovely, or 

 better arranged to charm the eye of man. This description 

 of the change of plumage in the Mallard has been penned 

 down with great care. I enclosed two male birds in a coop, 

 from the middle of May to the middle of October, and saw 

 them every day during the whole of their captivity. Perhaps 

 the moulting in other individuals may vary a trifle with re- 

 gard to time. Thus we may say that once every year, for 

 a very short period, the Drake goes, as it were, into an 

 eclipse, so that, from the early part of the month of July, to 

 about the first week in August, neither in the poultry yards 

 of civilized man, nor through the vast expanse of Nature's 

 wildest range, can there be found a Drake in that plumage 

 which, at all other seasons of the year, is so remarkably 

 splendid and diversified." 



