32 BULLETIN 465, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



WILD MILLET. 



VALUE AS DUCK FOOD. 



Wild millet {Echinochloa crus-galli) is an important food for 

 ducks in widely separated regions of the United States. At Mud 

 Lake, Ark., the writer found seeds of this plant to constitute more 

 than 10 per cent of the food of 41 mallards collected; at Belle Isle, 

 La., it made up more than half the food of the few mallards exam- 

 ined; and at Cameron, La., over 75 per cent of the diet of a collection 

 of 50 ducks of the same species. Pintails, teal, and other shoal-water 

 ducks are almost equalfy fond of it. Geese eat the stems and leaves 

 of the plant, as do also ducks when they are hard pressed. Testimony 

 as to the value of the plant as a wild-duck food has come from Wis- 

 consin and Oregon, and the Biological Survey has found seeds of wild 

 millet in duck stomachs from Massachusetts, South Dakota, Missouri, 

 and Nebraska in addition to the States mentioned. 



The plant is popularly known throughout lower Louisiana as wild 

 rice and is given about the same rank as a duck food as the plant 

 (Zizania aquatica) known by that name in the North. Other popular 

 names referring to the preference of wild fowl for the plant are goose 

 grass and blue-duck food. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. 



Wild millet is a coarse, leafy grass which grows from 1 to 6 feet in 

 height. The stems and foliage are not especially remarkable, but 

 the fruiting head has characters which enable one easily to distin- 

 guish this from other species of native grasses. The chaff or outer 

 seed covering is set with rows of short, stiff, outstanding spines. 

 These project beyond the general outline of the body of the seeds and 

 give them an easily visible spiny appearance (fig. 30). The inner 

 scale of the chaff terminates in a spine which is always stouter and 

 longer than the others. This spine or awn may be very short, or it 

 may be from 2 to 3 inches or more in length, surpassing by many times 

 the length of the seed. One of the other scales also may bear a long 

 spine at the tip. The prickly character of the seed coverings is re- 

 ferred to in the name cockspur grass. The longer awns in particular, 

 and sometimes the whole fruiting heads, may have a deep purplish 

 color. This, no doubt, suggested the name blue-cluck food used in the 

 Mississippi Delta. The long-awned form has been given the varietal 

 name longearistata but for present purposes we may consider all the 

 types illustrated in figures 30 and 31 under the same name. It is 

 probable also that the form named Echinochloa walteri is fully con- 

 nected with E. crus-galli by intergrades and deserves. only varietal 

 rank. This form has the lower or all-leaf sheaths rough hispid. 



