MAP SHOWING THK BE;ST BREIEDING GROUNDS OF WII.D DUCKS AND GE;e;SE 



"All the lightest shaded area within the United States has now been brought so thor- 

 oughly under cultivation that it can never amount to much as a nursery for young ducks. 

 The next heavier shading includes much of Minnesota and North Dakota, where there are 

 still a great many lakes and marshes too large ever to be drained. . . . The most heavily 

 shaded part in the northern United States and southern Canada represents what is left of 

 the 'ducks' paradise'" (see text, page 363). 



few species, such as the wood-duck, mer- 

 ganser, and golden-eye, nest in hollow 

 trees ; but those which are the most im- 

 portant from the standpoint either of 

 food or sport — the Canada goose and the 

 mallard, pintail, teal, redhead, and can- 

 vasback — breed in the open country. 



DUCKS pre;fe;r the; west for nesting 



The whole region east of Indiana and 

 north of the Potomac River, including 

 also all of Canada east of Lake Huron 

 and Hudson Bay, has never had more 

 than a few small tracts suitable for breed- 

 ing grounds. Only one species — the black 

 duck, or black mallard — nested there com- 

 monly, and that in numbers insignificant 

 as compared with those of its nearest 

 relative, the common mallard, in the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley. 



In fact, the settlement of this eastern 

 part of the country has decreased the 

 acreage of duck-breeding grounds so little 



that if the black mallard was allowed 

 proper protection, it would still nest in 

 goodly numbers throughout this entire 

 area. 



No other duck seems to have cared tcj | 

 nest in any numbers east of Hudson Bay,' ' 

 and the enormous flocks of ducks re- 

 ported by the early settlers, in the fall 

 migration, were not eastern-bred birds, 

 but were travelers from the interior of 

 the North American continent, where 

 tracts of country furnishing exactly the 

 conditions desired by ducks and geese 

 were to be measured by square miles in- 

 stead of acres. 



The so-called "prairie region" of the 

 United States then extended into Illinois 

 and northwestern Indiana, and so much 

 of it as was occupied by lakes and 

 marshes — northern Indiana, a wide strip 

 of northern Illinois, another strip of 

 northern Iowa, and thence northward to ■ 

 the Arctic Ocean — was crowded with ; 



362 



