i86 



The Goose-like Birds 



rich dark chestnut, separated from the green of the neck by a pure white collar; 

 across the secondaries is a rich, metallic violet speculum, bordered above and 

 below with white, while the rump, upper tail-coverts, and four middle curled 

 tail-feathers are blatk; the rest of the tail-feathers are gray and the abdomen 

 and flanks finely vermiculated grayish white, while the legs and feet are orange- 

 red. The female is smaller and has the general plumage mottled brown and buff. 

 In North America the Mallard is a migratory bird, spending the summer 

 mainly in the interior from Indiana and Iowa northward, also reaching Labrador 

 and the Arctic regions, while in winter it retires to the Southern States and middle 

 America. " Marshy places, the margins of ponds and streams, pools, and ditches 

 are its favorite resorts. It walks with ease, and can even run with considerable 



speed, or dive, if forced to 

 do so; but never dives in 

 order to feed. Its food con- 

 sists chiefly of the seeds of 

 grasses, fibrous roots of 

 plants, worms, mollusks, 

 and insects. In feeding in 

 shallow water it keeps the 

 hind part of the body erect, 

 while it searches the muddy 

 bottom with its bill." - 

 BREWER. When alarmed it 

 springs up at once with a 

 bound, uttering at the time a 

 loud quack, and often rising 

 obliquely to a considerable 

 height, flies off with tre- 

 mendous speed. The nest 

 is usually placed on the ground, though occasionally in trees, where they may oc- 

 cupy the deserted nest of a Crow or Hawk. The ordinary nest on the ground 

 is usually a bulky structure made of coarse grasses and sedges and occasionally 

 lined with feathers or down. The eggs, six to ten in number, aje pale green or 

 greenish white, and about two and twenty-five hundredths by one and seventy 

 hundredths inches in size. In Great Britain the Mallard is a resident species 

 and is the most common and best known of the fresh-water Ducks, breeding in 

 suitable situations throughout the country. During winter, however, the number 

 is augmented by many that have bred in more northern localities. Those breed- 

 ing in northern Asia visit India and China in winter, those of north Europe going 

 in part to northern Africa. It is perhaps needless to state that the Mallard is 

 the ancestral stock whence most of our domestic breeds have sprung. 



Other Species. The genus to which the Mallard belongs (Anas) contains, 

 in its broadest interpretation, some thirty additional species, which are by many 

 authors distributed among several genera. The genus is practically of cosmo- 

 politan distribution, and although many of the species are of extreme beauty 



FIG. 61. Mallard Duck, Anas boschas. 



