272 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Mallard may be said 

 to be an inhabitant of the temperate portions of the Palgearctic 

 and Nearctic Regions, not breeding north of the Arctic Circle, 

 but throughout Europe, including the Mediterranean countries, 

 and across the temperate portions of Asia, and wintering in 

 India and China. It even breeds in Cashmere. In America 

 it breeds in the temperate latitudes, and wanders south in 

 winter, when it is found as far south as Panama. 



Habits. The tame Duck of our farmyards, which is suffi- 

 ciently well-known to preclude any special description of its 

 habits, is a derivative of the true Wild Duck, but the latter 

 bird in its native habitat is decidedly a wary bird. 



The Mallard is a very interesting species to study where 

 one has an opportunity of so doing, as its habits are very 

 varied. Sometimes numbers of nests will be found in the 

 growing grass of a meadow close to a lake, at other times 

 most curious situations are chosen for the nest. In the 

 choice of a situation the Duck is very cautious, and it is 

 often not discovered until the appearance of the young ones 

 betrays its situation. It is especially where there are plenty of 

 foxes that the wariness of the Duck is developed, and at 

 Avington Park where the head-keeper once told me that he 

 had known forty sitting ducks to be taken off their nests in a 

 season by foxes I have found some curious sites for the 

 nest. One was in a dell, quite half a mile from the lake, and it 

 was artfully concealed under some outgrowing roots of a tree : 

 another was made in the hollow between two wide-spreading 

 limbs of an oak, about ten feet from the ground, and quite a 

 mile away from any water. Mr. De Winton has known a nest 

 to be built in the thick ivy on the wall of a house. Mr. Robert 

 Read also tells me that he has found it in the open amongst 

 heather, under a rock amongst bracken, in rushes by the 

 water-side, and in the hollow of a pollard-tree, while in 1894, he 

 found a nest on the Thames with ten eggs and one egg of a 

 Pheasant. 



Like the tame Duck, the Mallard is almost omnivorous in 

 its choice of food, many kinds of aquatic plants and weeds, as 

 well as all kinds of water-insects, worms and slugs, forming its 

 staple diet, but it will also eat grain, acorns, &c. 



