78 The Water-fowl Family 



mallard frequents the corn-fields and stubbles. 

 They are, to a large degree, nocturnal in their 

 habits, and depend on their sense of touch and 

 smell in feeding. When hunting a few years 

 since on Currituck Sound, the cunning of the 

 mallards especially impressed me. Sunset closes 

 the gunner's day; almost immediately the first 

 flocks of mallard come ; the marshes, all day long 

 devoid of ducks, now hear their whistling wings. 

 Birds that have alighted call to those in the air, 

 and their quacking is almost a din. At the first 

 streak of dawn they are gone. They know the 

 close days as well as the hunter. In some of the 

 ponds near the club-house, shooting was not 

 allowed. They frequented these spots with as 

 little concern as the flock of decoys kept there. 

 Few birds come to stool any better when once 

 they start ; often the live decoys see them first, 

 and the far-off flock respond to the call. If high 

 in air they drop and circle within range, but, quick 

 to notice danger, at the slightest movement from 

 the blind they spring into the air with a frightened 

 quack and are off. The rice fields of the South 

 are favorite haunts, and on this diet or wild celery 

 the flesh is unsurpassed. In parts of the West 

 along the salmon rivers, mallards sometimes feed 

 on the maggots infesting the dead fish, and become 

 intolerably rank. On the northeastern coast of 

 the United States and Canada the bird is rare, 



