112 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The Wild Duck is practically omnivorous, and will devour anything that its 

 domestic congener will take. They are greedy feeders, and very partial to water 

 insects, frogs, caddis larvae, worms, the seeds of Zostem marina, crustaceans, marine 

 and fresh water shell-fish, roots and fronds of several water plants, and all sorts 

 of grain.* Perhaps the fattest are those killed in winter, on the Indian jheels, 

 not unfrequently bursting when they fall, and disclosing a great thickness of fat 

 on the breast. 



In confinement they live to a great age. Mr. J. H. Gurney has recorded two 

 at North repps, one of which lived for twenty-two years, and then died by an 

 accident ; and another tame Wild Duck, a female, which lived in the same parish, 

 from 1854 to 1883 twenty-nine years and during the last eight years of its life 

 assumed a complete drake plumage, with exception of a slight sprinkling of brown 

 amongst the green feathers of the head and neck. Proverbially wild as this species 

 is, no birds can become tamer than those reared from the egg under domestic 

 fowls. The Wild Duck pairs freely with other species, and there are many instances 

 of hybrids between the male or female and the Sheld-Duck, Pintail, Wigeon, 

 Gadwall, Teal, and Muscovy Ducks. 



The Mallard is subject to considerable variation, and I have seen many very 

 beautiful varieties, the last, a pure white bird, in the Lincolnshire marshes a most 

 conspicuous object in flight. 



In the present day, the best sport to be had amongst Ducks is obtained by 

 "flight" shooting, watching, concealed in the line of flight, as the birds pass at 

 dusk from the sea, or some tidal estuary, to feed on the stubble lands. I recently 

 knew eighteen couple killed by one gun a twelve-bore ordinary sporting piece- 

 in less than half an hour, and the shooter only desisted because his barrels got 

 too hot to hold. This sort of shooting is a great lottery, and you ma}' stand 

 " flight " night after night and hardly get a shot, the Ducks passing too high, or 

 coming too late to see them, or taking some other line to their feeding ground. 



The weight of a Mallard is a little over three Ibs., the duck somewhat 

 less than this ; I have weighed drakes three Ibs. seven to three Ibs. nine oz. Its 

 nearest ally is the Black-Duck (Anas obscuro) or Black- Mallard, of America. 



Colonel Feilden (Zool. 1891, pp. 350-1) gives an instance of great flocks of Mallard being driven by the 

 severe winter of 1890-91, at Ilolkham Park, in Norfolk, to the woods, where they were constantly engaged for 

 weeks feeding on fallen acorns ; after feeding they spread about the Park, and presumably the undigested 

 acorns must have been dropped everywhere over the grass-lands, as on the following June, hundreds of acres 

 were studded with seedling oaks. 



