170 MALLARD. 



would shoot from fifty to a hundred and twenty in a day, thus supplying 

 the plantation with excellent food. 



The flight of the Mallard is swift, strong, and well sustained. It rises 

 either from the ground or from the water at a single spring, and flies al- 

 most perpendicularly for ten or fifteen yards, or, if in a thick wood, until 

 quite above the tops of the tallest trees, after which it moves horizontally. 

 If alarmed, it never rises without uttering several quacks ; but on other 

 occasions it usually leaves its place in silence. While travelHng to any 

 distance; the whistling sound of their wings may be heard a great way oW, 

 more especially in the quiet of night. Their progress through the air I 

 have thought might be estimated at a mile and a half in the minute ; and 

 I feel very confident that when at full speed and on a long journey, they 

 can fly at the rate of a hundred and twenty miles in the hour. 



The Mallard is truly omnivorous, its food consisting of every thing 

 that can possibly satisfy the cravings of its extraordinary appetite. Nor 

 is it at all cleanly in this respect, for it will swallow any kind of offals, 

 and feed on all sorts of garbage, even putrid fish, as well as on snakes 

 and small quadrupeds. Nuts and fruits of all kinds are dainties to it, 

 and it soon fattens on rice, corn, or any other grain. My friend John 

 Bachman, who usually raises a great number of Mallards every year, has 

 the young fed on chopped fish, on which they thrive uncommonly well. 

 So very gi'eedy are these birds, that I have often observed a couple of 

 them tugging for a long time against each other for the skin of an eel, 

 which was already half swallowed by the one, while the other was en- 

 gaged at the opposite end. They are expert fly-catchers, and are in the 

 habit of patting with their feet the damp earth, to force ground-worms 

 out of their burrows. 



Besides man, the enemies of the Mallard are the White-headed Eagle, 

 the Snowy Owl, the Virginian Owl, the racoon, the lynx, and the snap- 

 ping turtle. Mallards are easily caught by snares, steel-traps baited with 

 corn, and figure-of-four traps. As we have no decoys in the United 

 States, I shall not trouble you with a new edition of the many accounts 

 you will find in ornithological books of that destructive method of pro- 

 curing Wild Ducks. 



The eggs of this species measure two inches and a quarter in length, 

 one inch and five-eighths in breadth. The shell is smooth, and of a plain 

 light dingy green. They are smaller than those of the tame duck, and 

 rarely so numerous. As soon as incubation commences, the males asso- 



