WILD DUCKS 153 



poultry. They average about twenty-five to forty eggs 

 per duck in a season, and individuals go considerably 

 higher. When it is realized that mallard eggs from pure 

 wild stock sell readily at 20 cents each wholesale and 25 

 cents retail, it will be seen that a duck, worth, say, three 

 dollars, which lays ten dollars' worth of eggs a season, is not 

 such a bad boarder! Wood ducks, properly handled, usu- 

 ally produce two clutches of eggs a season by having the 

 first laying removed as soon as complete. With other kinds, 

 at the present stage of progress, we are delighted to get even 

 one laying, and are overjoyed at two. Wild ducks lay from 

 seven to sixteen eggs to a clutch, eight to eleven being the 

 usual numbers. I once found 22 eggs in a redhead's nest, 

 in Saskatchewan, but this is extraordinary, perhaps the lay- 

 ings of two ducks. E. A. Mcllhenny, however, has just 

 informed me that he has bred the blue-winged teal and the 

 gadwall in captivity and secured eggs in considerable num- 

 bers, teals having laid as many as sixty eggs in a season. 

 Date of Laying. Both in the wild state and in captivity 

 the mallard is a very early breeder. On preserves in the 

 latitude of New York City they begin laying early in April, 

 or sometimes in March. The pintail is another early duck. 

 In the Canadian Northwest I have obtained young pintails 

 nearly able to fly, nine or ten weeks old, on the 25th of June. 

 The eggs, therefore, must have been laid in early April, 

 when it is still winter in that region where ice stays in the 

 lakes till the middle of May. Next out there comes the 

 canvasback, with eggs early in May. The teals and shov- 

 eller begin incubation toward the end of May, the redhead 

 in early June. The ruddy duck, gadwall, widgeon, and 

 scaups are late, averaging about June loth, while the white- 

 winged scoter seldom has eggs before the last week in June. 

 The wood duck, both wild and captive, usually lays in late 



