GADWALL 
155 
Tampico the birds may be seen in thousands (Sanford, Bishop and Van Dyke, 1903). 
The great breeding area in North America centers in North Dakota, where all 
observers have found it extremely abundant, even equalling the Mallard in the 
vicinity of Dawson, where 300 pairs were counted in July (U.S. Biological Survey). 
As far west as Malheur Lake in Oregon as many as 200 pairs were said to be nesting 
in 1915 (Cantwell, U.S. Biological Survey records). On the Bear River marshes of 
Utah it was fifth in order of abundance among breeding ducks, and Wetmore (1921) 
estimated that in the years 1914 to 1916 some 200 pairs nested there annually. In 
New Mexico it was thought that 60 pairs were breeding on Lake Burford, where they 
outnumbered the Mallards, and were the most common breeding ducks (Wetmore, 
1920). Other observers have placed this colony of GadwaU much higher, up to 
2000! (U.S. Biological Survey, field notes). On migration the species is common 
enough in Colorado and Nevada to equal or outnumber any other kind of duck 
(U.S. Biological Survey, field notes). In the Rio Grande Valley it represented only 
about 2% of a hunter’s bag (Leopold, 1919). An idea as to its much lower status 
in California may be obtained from the market records. In the season of 1895-96, 
only 671 GadwaU as against 47,565 Mallard were brought in to San Francisco mar- 
kets (Grinnell, Bryant and Storer, 1918). The Hunters’ Game Transfer Company of 
San Francisco marketed 2942 out of a total of 357,114 ducks in the five seasons from 
1906 to 1911. In the San Francisco market in 1910-11 there were 1299 GadwaU 
out of a total of 185,867 ducks. 
To sum up the evidence for increase or decrease in America from the above data 
and many other notes, it may be said that the GadwaU shows no very great diminu- 
tion in numbers on its wintering grounds and during the last few years it has shown 
an increase in the Mississippi Valley. In Minnesota there are such great variations 
in the numbers of breeding birds, that it is almost impossible to get a correct idea of 
the present status. For instance, it was described as more common than the Mallard 
there in 1880 (Roberts and Benner, 1880) and forty years later it was said to be 
greatly reduced there (Roberts, 1919). In the Edmonton region of Alberta, Mr. 
William Rowan writes me that he considers it still plentiful, although scarcer than 
formerly. 
In the British Isles the GadwaU was always a rare and local \dsitor, until artifi- 
cially induced to nest in Norfolk about 1850, after which it became for a time quite 
common locally. In the last thirty years it is steadily decreasing again, at least as a 
breeding bird (Millais, 1902; Stonham, 1908). In Scotland it was not known to 
breed untU fifteen years ago, but since that time it seems to have slowly increased 
(Baxter and Rintoul, 1920). An idea of its general status in England may be 
obtained from the fact that out of 96,000 ducks taken in the thirty-five years 
between 1833 and 1867, at the Ashby Decoy, only 22 were GadwaU! 
On the Continent the species seems to be holding its own in Germany, perhaps 
