MALLARD, OR WILD DUCK 241 



painful to contemplate, since we are accustomed to look on the 

 parental affection as the most powerful of all ; and in this case there 

 is a conflict between this emotion and another the desire for 

 another climate; and the last conquers, and the young are forsaken. 

 In the drake it is not a case of a conflict between two emotions or 

 two instincts, but of a physical change, which kills or makes nuga- 

 tory the instinct and emotion ; for it is certain that the moulting 

 period in all species that, like the duck, change their whole plumage 

 in a short time, is not only a period of danger, but of suffering. 

 "When the change comes the bird acts like the ' stricken deer,' and 

 like animals afflicted with some fatal disease : he goes apart, and 

 remains in hiding until his new plumage has grown, and with 

 renewed health his social instincts are restored. It is only in the 

 case of the male duck that this change from health. and strength to 

 sickness and impotence falls in the midst of the breeding season. 



Another extraordinary fact about the moulting of the drake is 

 that, in moulting, he puts on the dress of the female. The moult is 

 complete, but only after the whole of the small feathers have been 

 changed are the wing- and tail-feathers shed, and as these are all 

 shed at once, the bird is for some time incapable of flight. But 

 while in this incapable condition he is no longer a drake in appear- 

 ance a bird of rich and conspicuous colouring but has a dull 

 mottled brown like the duck. This annual ' eclipse,' as Waterton 

 called it, lasts for three or four months ; and then there is a second, 

 autumnal moult, of the body-feathers only, in which the rich colours 

 of the male sex are recovered. 



The duck, in the meantime, moults only once in the year. 



A slight difference has been noted between the resident mallard 

 that breeds in the British Islands and the mallard from the north 

 that visits us in winter, the native bird being heavier. 



Gadwell. 

 Chaulelasmus streperus. 



Beak lead-colour ; head and upper neck light brown with darker 

 mottlings ; back marked with crescents of light grey on a dark 

 ground ; median wing-coverts chestnut ; greater coverts blackish ; 

 primaries brown ; secondaries brown and black, the outer webs 

 forming a white speculum ; rump and upper tail-coverts bluish 

 black ; tail-feathers dark brown with pale edges ; lower neck dark 



R 



