26 WARM-WEATHER BIRDS. 
south and central parts; but in the north and west 
they nest in barley and wheat fields, frequently half a 
mile from any water. The big musquaids in the north 
are favorite places, heavy cane, grasses and rice being 
found in profusion. 
For food, see chart. 
Their clutch is from six to eight greenish eggs, 
rudely placed in hay, weeds, etc., with little care or lin- 
ing, in depressions and hollows, dead furrows, etc., in 
barley or wheat fields and prairies; often twenty to 
forty nests may be found in an area of one hundred 
acres, and thousands of nests in North Dakota and 
Minnesota are turned under by the plow every week 
in the spring. The plan of burning off the vast 
prairies there must be seen to appreciate its destruc- 
tiveness; hundreds of burnt shells, in the nests, can 
be seen in the spring, where the grass was burned off 
late after nesting had begun. 
This mallard becomes scarce east of the Ohio 
River, where its cousin, A. obscura, usurps its place; 
upon the other hand, A. obscura is scarcer the nearer 
it approaches the Mississippi. 
The following description shows some difference, 
between the ice mallard or yellow-leg and the orange 
or red-leg. The red-leg being a timber bird where 
the acorn mast exists, but a prairie bird in feeding on 
the barley fields of the north and west; whereas the 
yellow-leg is a prairie bird always, rarely using the 
oak slashes and roosting on the prairie or wide open 
lakes in the south. Length 28; wing 11.20; tarsus 
1.70; extent 38.00; middle toe 2.75. 
