River and Pond Ducks 



taring and diving is done to get rid of the pests. Mallards dive 

 and swim under water also to escape danger, but rarely to 

 collect food. During the day they make many bold excursions 

 to the centre of the lake and explore the inlets and indentations 

 of the shore. On the first quack of alarm, however, up bounds 

 the entire flock and, rising obliquely to a good height, their stif- 

 fened wings whistling through the wind, off they fly at a speed 

 no locomotive can match. Perhaps the reason for most misses 

 of the amateur hunter is his inability to conceive the rate at 

 which ducks move, and so to hold far enough ahead of the 

 bird he has selected. Mallards waste no time sailing, but after 

 climbing the sky on throbbing wings they continue to flap them 

 constantly. Before alighting it is their habit to wheel round and 

 round a feeding-ground to assure themselves no danger lurks 

 in ambush. They are conspicuous sufferers from the duck- 

 hawk, whose marvelous flight so far excels even theirs that es- 

 cape is hopeless in a long race unless the duck should be flying 

 over water, into which a sudden plunge and a long swim under 

 the surface to a sheltered corner in the sedges, frees it from the 

 persecutor that lives by tearing the flesh from the breasts of hun- 

 dreds of such victims every year. 



Wary as these ducks are, they are also eminently inquisitive, 

 or the painted, wooden decoys of dingy little females, gay ban- 

 dana handkerchiefs fluttering from poles, that are used in 

 the south to excite their curiosity, and other time-honored tricks 

 of sportsmen would never have been crowned with success. 

 The mallards are also exceedingly shy, and feel at greatest ease 

 and liberty when the dusk of evening and dawn covers their 

 feeding-grounds and conceals their flight that is often suspected 

 solely by the whistling of their wings through the darkness over- 

 head. Their loud quack, quack, exactly like that of the domestic 

 duck, resounds cheerfully in the spring and autumn migrations. 



To see the endearments and little gallantries the handsome 

 drake bestows on his mate in spring, no one would sus- 

 pect him of total indifference to her later. Waterton and other 

 writers claim that the wild mallard is not only strictly monoga- 

 mous, but remains paired for life. Perhaps polygamy cannot be 

 fairly charged against him, however suspicious his indifference 

 to his mate and ducklings appears. Many ornithologists claim 

 that he is positively unable to help his mate and young, owing 



95 



