488 



ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Male. Head and neck bright grass-green, with violet gloss, the top of the head 

 duller; a white ring round the middle of the neck, below which and on the 

 forepart and sides of the breast the color is dark brownish-chestnut; under parts 

 and sides, with the scapulars, pale-gray, very finely undulated with dusky; the 

 outer scapulars with a brownish tinge ; forepart of back reddish-brown ; posterior 

 more olivaceous ; crissum and upper tail coverts black, the latter with a blue gloss ; 

 tail externally white; wing coverts brownish-gray, the greater coverts tipped first 

 with white, and then more narrowly with black; speculum purplish-violet, termi- 

 nated with black ; a recurved tuft of feathers on the rump ; iris dark-brown. 



Female. With the wing exactly as on the male; the under parts plain whitish- 

 ochrey, each feather obscurely blotched with dusky ; head and neck similar, spotted 

 and streaked with dusky; the chin and throat above unspotted; upper parts dark- 

 brown, the feathers broadly edged and banded with reddish-brown, parallel with the 

 circumference. 



Length of male, twenty-three inches ; wing, eleven ; tarsus, one and seventy one- 

 hundredths ; commissure of bill, two and fifty one-hundredths inches. 



The Mallard is found in New England only as a wan- 

 derer, and then only in the western sections in the spring 

 and autumn seasons ; a few are seen in the waters of Lake 



Champlain, and oc- 

 casionally a small 

 flock is found in the 

 Connecticut River. 

 This is the original 

 of the Common Do- 

 mestic Mallard ; and 

 its habits are so well 

 known that I will 

 give no description 

 here. 



This bird breeds in all sections of the United States, 

 more abundantly, of course, in the northern than in the 

 southern ; and less often in the eastern than in the inte- 

 rior and western. In most of the Western States, it is 

 one of the most abundant of water-fowls ; and it breeds in 

 all the meadows and by the ponds and streams throughout 

 those sections. The nest is built in a tussock of high grass, 

 or in a thick clump of weeds. It is composed of pieces of 

 grass and weeds, and is lined to the depth of half an inch 





