406 
quite unlike a tit’s. The reedling is a 
most sociable bird, being always found in 
pairs or flocks according to the season, 
and in captivity the affection the pairs 
show for each other is most touching. 
Unfortunately, the reedling is now very rare 
in England, beg restricted to the Norfolk 
Broads, where, like most rare birds, it 1s of 
course in danger from collectors. The fact, 
however, that it is now fairly easy to obtain 
alive— specimens were recently advertised 
at ten shillings a paiz—makes it possible 
to hope that suitable localities may be 
restocked with foreign specimens, as was 
done in the case of the capercailzie when 
that grand bird became extinct in Britain. 
D2) 
Many people will be inchned, with M. Gabriel 
The Rogeron, the author of an 
Mallard. 
admirable work on ducks as 
MALLARD AND DUCK. 
fancy birds, to consider the true wild 
Mallard (Anas boschas) as one of the most 
Animal Life 
beautiful of all ducks, his fine proportions - 
being admirably set off by unusually rich 
plumage, which we hardly appreciate as 
a rule because it is so familar. . Yet there 
are few pieces of colour in nature so 
rich as the plushy metallic-green of the 
mallard’s neck, and the rest of his plumage 
is most beautifully harmonised. As anyone 
may see, however, in such places as the 
London parks, where the birds breed freely 
in a protected condition, the mallard shows 
a strong tendency to depart from his original 
pattern, to the detriment of his beauty. Many 
birds lack the beautiful chocolate breast of 
the wild bird; im others this brown cclour 
is exaggerated, and runs cloudily along the 
flanks; while in a third variety all the 
splendid metallic tints are wanting, and the 
pattern of the plumage is reproduced in a 
grey monochrome, only the brown of the 
breast remaining. 
These glossless birds, 
and also the grey- 
breasted ones, are not 
rejected by the 
females, as may be 
seen in Regent’s Park, 
where some are 
successfully paired, 
Wives among the park 
ducks apparently 
going to the strongest. 
The wild mallard, as 
may be seen by the 
Smyrna specimen in 
Mr. Mavroyeni’s 
photograph, is very 
much the same every- 
where, and it has a 
wide range, including 
the northern hemi- 
sphere generally; 
American specimens 
are particularly large 
-and fine. It is interest- 
ing to note that the 
variations of colour 
above alluded to are 
repeated in the tame 
ducks of India, living in a climate in which 
the wild race never breeds. 
