80 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



newts, earthworms, leeches and small shell-fish. The Black 

 Duck is a gluttonous feeder. Knight tells of one which lie 

 found asleep under some berry bushes, and it was so gorged 

 with berries that it could not fly. As a destroyer of weed 

 seed the Black Duck is pre-eminent. Eaton in his Birds 

 of New York recalls that on the morning of October 26, 

 1901, he '' shot a Black Duck from a flock of 75 birds, which 

 were returning to Canandaigua Lake from a flooded cornfield. 

 From its gullet and gizzard," he says, " I took 23,704 weed 

 seeds, which, together with a few jjebbles, snail shells and 

 chaff, were the sole contents of its stomach. Of these seeds 

 13,240 were pigweeds {Chenopodium and Amaranthus), 7,264 

 were knotgrass {Polygonum), 2,624 were ragweed (Ambrosia) 

 and 576 were dock {Rumex).'' The food of the Black Duck 

 has the same practical interest for the game preserver as has 

 that of the Mallard, for the Black Duck is closely related to 

 the Mallard, thrives almost equalh^ well on grain, and, when 

 grain fed, becomes a very excellent bird for the table. It is 

 the darker eastern representative of the Mallard, and can be 

 artificially propagated, though it is somewhat quarrelsome in 

 disposition, and, therefore, it is not usuallj^ profitable to con- 

 fine it with Ducks of other species. 



Note. — The Red-legged Black Duck {Anas rubripes rvbripes) is now 

 generally regarded as the fully adult male of the Black Duck. The cjuestion 

 of its validity as a subspecies has caused some discussion, and it has been 

 placed on the hypothetical list. 



