388 FEATHERED GAME 



and nimble movements of the mallard, wood 

 duck or pintail. 



These are the children of the frozen seas, 

 abundant only in Arctic waters and only com- 

 ing into the warmer latitudes when the north 

 is given over to the dreary reign of night and 

 winter. Their migrations extend as far south 

 as the Middle Atlantic States, but they are rare 

 birds on all the coast line. An occasional 

 straggler is seen in the Great Lakes, and there 

 is one record of a male bird being taken on the 

 Mississippi, probably having been blown out of 

 his course, his reckoning lost, and he very will- 

 ing to go back to sea, for his cargo was nothing 

 but Mississippi mud. They are more common 

 on the Pacific coast than on the eastern edge of 

 our continent, but in the western waters do not 

 come so far south; probably because the same 

 latitudes are much warmer than with us. 



In form and habits they are much like the 

 common Eiders. In his markings the male dif- 

 fers from the male of the common variety in 

 that he has a remarkable frontal process, most 

 pronounced during the breeding months and 

 nearly disappearing after this season, — a large 

 and curious bulge upon the bridge of his nose, 



