BIRDS. 117 



Flathead and ' is great for laying eggs in the nests with golden-eyes 

 and buffle-heads and then scrapping over the nest." Apparently it is 

 commonly called wood duck. 



Mallard: A7ias platyrhyneha. — The green-headed drake mallard, 

 which is familiar to all from his resemblance to the domestic stock 

 derived from the wild, and the brown-mottled female, which may 

 be recognized by her large size, white-bordered purple wing patches, 

 her white outer tail feathers, and her loud barnyard quack, should 

 be looked for in the lower levels of the park. In the willowy borders 

 of Sherburne Lake, on August 5, we heard the quacking of mal- 

 lards, and at the oil wells down the lake were shown two nearly 

 grown young that the Stevensons had raised from eggs under a 

 hen. They had become so thoroughly domesticated that they allowed 

 the children to carry them around, 

 and, although they went down to the 

 lake with the wild mallards in the 

 daytime, returned to the house at 

 night. An adult and one nearly grown 

 young were seen, August 9, by Mr. 

 Bailey in a marsh just above Lake 

 Elizabeth, and on August 20 across the 

 Alberta line three were flushed from 

 one of the small sloughs. On August 

 21, we saw eleven mallards on Rey- 

 nolds Lake a few miles south of the 

 boundary. 



-» «- O J ii i iT 1 T From Handbook of Wostern Birds. L. A. Fuertos 



Mr. Stevenson says that thev breed 



11 -, T , ,1 1 " 1 Fig. 22.— Hooded merganser. 



m lakes and ponds at the lower eleva- 

 tions of the park and in 1914 were quite plentiful on the inlets 

 of both the upper and lower Sherburne Lakes. A mounted mal- 

 lard seen at Lewis's came from the North Fork of the Flathead, 

 and ]\Ir. Gird says they are common there as well as about 

 old beaver ponds on the Belly River. In the fall of 1887 Dr. Grin- 

 nell found them " extremely abundant throughout the St. Mary 

 Lakes region." They were also found feeding in open water late 

 in November, and he said that undoubtedly "a few remain all 

 winter on mountain streams." 



A few mallards were seen by Mr. Bailey, April 10 and 11, 1918, 

 along the Middle Fork of the Flathead and at Lake McDonald ; and 

 more, mostly in pairs, April 12-19, along the North Fork, from the 

 mouth of Camas Creek to Kintla Creek, and in many of the small 

 lakes and ponds; also on April 21, many pairs and flocks on Lake 

 McDonald. They were evidently both breeding and migrating. Mr. 

 E. H. Myrick, the forest ranger at Belton, saw a family with five 



