72 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



Notes. — The familiar quack of the barnyard Duck. 



Nest. — On ground. 



Eijgs. — Six to ten, about 'i.'io by 1.65, yellowish drab, variable. 



iSeason. — An uncommon migrant, very i-are in winter; March 27 to May 1; 

 September 'i'i to December 1. 



Range. — Northern hemisphere. In North America breeds from Pribilof 

 Islands, northwestern Alaska, northern Mackenzie, central Keewatin 

 and Greenland south to Lower California, southern New Mexico, 

 southern Kansas, central Missouri, southern Indiana and Maryland 

 (rarely); winters from the Aleutian Islands, central Alaska, central 

 Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, southern Wisconsin, northern Indiana, 

 Ohio, Maryland and Nova Scotia (rarely), south to Mexico, the Lesser 

 Antilles and Panama ; casual in Bermuda and Hawaii. 



History. 



The Mallard is a cosmopolitan species, the wild Duck of 

 the world. It is well known as the Duck from which nearly 

 all varieties of the domestic Duck were derived. It is the 

 common wild Duck over so large a part of the earth's surface 

 that it is of greater economic value than any other Duck. It 

 is exceeded by few. if any, in excellence for the table. The 

 Mallard was formerly the most abundant wild-fowl on this 

 hemisphere. Hearne (1795) found it in vast multitudes in 

 ])arts of the Hudson Bay country. Now it is no longer 

 abundant in those regions. Before the settlement of the 

 west, the prairie sloughs swarmed with Mallards, and in win- 

 ter the waters of the south were often crowded with them. 

 Audubon (ISS^) found them in Florida in such multitudes as 

 to " darken the air." He says that a single negro hunter, a 

 slave of General Hernandez, supplied the latter 's plantation 

 in east Florida, killing from fifty to one hundred and twenty 

 birds a day in the season. Mallards are now comparatively 

 rare there. Prof. W. W. Cooke states that as late as the 

 winter of 1893-94 a gunner at Big Lake, Ark., sold eight thou- 

 sand Mallards, and one hundred and twenty thousand were 

 sent to market during the season from that place alone. Dur- 

 ing the settlement of the west, hundreds of tons were killed 

 in the south and west for their feathers, by negroes, Indians, 

 half-breeds and whites, and the bodies of most of them were 

 thrown away. In the southwest Mallards are still plentiful 



