12 BULLETIN 58, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Ark., the writer found seeds of this plant to constitute more than 

 10 per cent of the food of the 41 mallards collected; at Belle Isle, La., 

 it made up more than half of the food of the few mallards examined, 

 and at Cameron, La. ; over 75 per cent of the diet of a collection of 

 50 ducks of the same species. Pintails, teal, and other shoal- 

 water ducks are almost equally fond of it. Geese eat the stems 

 and leaves of the plant, as also do ducks when they are hard pressed. 

 Testimony as to the value of the plant has come from Wisconsin and 

 Oregon, and the Biological Survey has found seeds of wild millet 

 in duck stomachs from Massachusetts, South Dakota, Missouri, and 

 Nebraska in addition to the States above mentioned. 



The plant is popularly known throughout lower Louisiana as wild 

 rice and is given about the same rank as a duck food as the plant 

 (Zizania aquatica) known by that name in the north. Other popular 

 names referring to the preference of wild fowl for the plant are goose 

 grass and blue duck food. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. 



Wild millet is a coarse, leafy grass which grows from 1 to 6 feet in 

 height. The stems and foliage are not especially remarkable, but 

 the fruiting head has characters which enable us easily to distinguish 

 this from other species of native grasses. The chaff or outer seed 

 coverings is set with rows of short, stiff, outstanding spines. These 

 project beyond the general outline of the body of the seeds and 

 give them an easily visible spiny appearance (fig. 11). The inner 

 scale of the chaff terminates in a spine which is always stouter and 

 longer than the others. This spine or awn may be very short or 

 it may be from 2 to 3 inches long or more, surpassing by many 

 times the length of the seed. One of the other scales also may bear 

 a long spine at the tip. The prickly character of the seed coverings 

 is referred to in the name cockspur grass. The longer awns in 

 particular and sometimes the whole fruiting heads may have a deep 

 purplish color. This, no doubt, suggested the name blue duck 

 food used in the Mississippi Delta. The long-awned form has been 

 given the varietal name longearistata but for present purposes we may 

 consider all the types illustrated in figures 11 and 12 under the same 

 name. It is probable also that the form named Echinocliloa walteri 

 is fully connected with crus-galli by intergrades, and deserves only 

 varietal rank. This form has the lower or all leaf sheaths rough hispid. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The northern limit of the range of wild millet so far as known to us 

 does not much surpass the latitude of the northern boundary of the 

 United States. From there the plant ranges indefinitely to the 

 southward, occurring generally in rich moist soils or swamps at least 

 to Central America. 



