WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 93 
being separated by a white ring round the middle of the 
neck from the deep bay of the lower neck and breast : 
the rump, stern, and curly tail-feathers are black, and 
the wing-bar steel-blue edged with white fore and aft. 
The bill is yellowish olive-green and the feet orange : 
eyes dark. 
The female is mottled with light and dark brown, with 
the wings and feet like the male ;_ her bill is commonly 
black with an orange tip and edges, but varies. The 
male in undress 1s like her, but black on crown and 
rump ; young males resemble him in this stage. 
The male is about two feet long, with a wing about 
eleven inches ; bill about two and-a-half, and shank 
about one and-a-half ; the female is smaller and consi- 
derably lighter. 
The Mallard, likemany othersofour Ducks, has a very 
wide range, being a resident throughout the temperate 
regions of the Northern Hemisphere ; some birds migrate 
south in winter. With us it breeds in the Himalayas 
and Kashmir, and in winter is common in the Western 
Punjab and Sind, not rare in the North-West Provinces, 
Oudh and Behar, and occasionally occurs in Guzerat, the 
Central India Agency, the Deccan, Bengal, Assam, and 
Northern Burma ; in Southern India, Ceylon, Pegu, and 
Tenasserim it is unknown. Although by no means 
widely or universally distributed over India, this is the 
most familiar of all Ducks, beirg the common wild 
species of Europe, and the ancestor of our various tame 
breeds, except the Muscovy, which comes from a very 
distinct South American bird (Catrina moschata), a 
tree-haunting species more nearly allied to our Comb- 
duck. The domestication of the Duck is not so very 
ancient, since Columella, a Roman agricultural writer 
of about the beginning of the Christian era, recom- 
mends that Ducks should be kept in netted enclosures 
to prevent their flying away, and that the stock should 
be increased by taking the eggs of the wild birds and 
