MALLARD. 239 



The Roan Duck of Abbot, slightly noticed by that 

 well known collector to Dr. Latham, and placed by 

 him as one of the varieties of the mallard, may pro- 

 bably be a distinct species ; and deserves to be imported 

 into this country, from Savannah in Georgia, where, 

 according to Abbot, they are in great plenty about the 

 beginning of November: they seem to differ from ours, 

 not only in size, being full twenty-six inches long, but 

 by having the head ash-coloured, mixed with dusky 

 spots ; the wing spot, or speculum, is like that of the 

 mallard, but is not bounded by white; neither are there 

 any curled feathers in the tail. The common length of 

 the full grown wild duck of this country is twenty-four 

 inches. 



The imposing accounts of the celebrated decoys in 

 Lincolnshire, given by Pennant and Bewick, and other 

 writers, and the enormous multitudes of birds which 

 were then taken, will soon become by-gone histories : 

 even Montagu, who wrote so far back as 1813, observes, 

 that the common duck, as well as other wild fowl, 

 becomes scarcer every year in a country like this, where 

 agriculture makes such rapid progress; few, compara- 

 tively, remain to breed with us, since the more extensive 

 fens have been drained and converted into pasture. 

 The great fenny tracts in Lincolnshire do not produce 

 a dozen broods of wild fowl at present ; where, half a 

 century back, as many thousands were hatched. In a 

 tour through that country, observes colonel Montagu, 

 during the incubating season, we observed that the 

 mallards congregated while the ducks were sitting; it 

 is therefore probable, that, like the domestic ones, they 

 are mostly polygamous. 



