184 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



crescents and margined with ocherous buffy; under parts ocherous buff, 

 mottled with dusky brown ; wings hke the males ; feet not so bright as males ; 

 bill orange-ocher, marbled with dusky. Male in summer: Resembles 

 female. 



Length 20-25 inches; extent 32-36; wing 10-12; tail 3-4; tarsus 1.5- 

 1.8; middle toe and claw 2.25; bill 2-2.4; weight 2-3 lb. 



Hybrids of the Mallard with the Black duck, Pintail, Green-winged 

 teal, and other species are occasional!}' taken. The Anas m a x i m a or 

 Green-backed mallard of many writers is probably a hybrid between the 

 Mallard and Muscovy duck. It is almost black in general coloration, but 

 shows more or less of the Mallard pattern, and is nearly as large as a goose. 



Distribution. The Mallard is rare, or uncommon, on Long Island and 

 in general in the eastern part of the State. Throughout the Great Lake 

 region and the larger marshes of the interior it is fairly common as a tran- 

 sient visitant, but nowhere in the State is as abundant as the Black duck, 

 the Mallard belonging more to the Mississippi valley and western North 

 America, the Black duck to the Atlantic coastal region. It breeds as far 

 s :)uth as central New York and northern Missouri and as far north as Green- 

 land and the Arctic ocean, being holarctic in distribution, but is practically 

 absent from Labrador and the New England region. It winters from New 

 York and northern Illinois as far south as Florida, Cuba and Panama, but 

 chiefly in the Gulf States and northern Mexico. In New York the Mallard 

 is occasionally found in winter on Long Island and in western New York. 

 It breeds very rarely in the counties of Cayuga, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, 

 Orleans, Oswego, Seneca, and perhaps in Washington. It occurs chiefly, 

 however, as a transient, arriving from the south from the loth to the 20th 

 of March in the southern portions of the State and a week or so later in the 

 northern. The\- leave for the north abovit the iTiiddle of April, sometimes 

 remaining till the loth of May, and return from their breeding grounds 

 about the ist of October and leave for the south about the middle of Novem- 

 ber. Thev are commonest in the spring a few days after the marshes are 

 free from ice and in the fall after the first sharp frosts and snow flurries. 



The Mallard, Green-head, or common wild duck is well known over 

 nearly the whole northern hemisphere and is the original of the domestic 



