476 



8 



to twelve eggs are usually deposited. Dresser obtained the first eggs near Uleaborg in the 

 month of May. Dr. E. Rey informs us that he has known the Mallard to lay as many as 

 fifteen eggs. He further writes that forty-two eggs he has measured average in size 5 8- 3 by 41, 

 the largest measuring 62-5 by 42, and the smallest 50*5 by 39 millimetres respectively. Mr. 

 Benzon gives the size of eggs taken in Denmark as from 52 by 40 to 60 by 44 millimetres. The 

 eggs are dull greenish grey in colour, much resembling those of the common tame Duck. 



Besides being shot, many Mallard are annually netted in decoys in the eastern counties of 

 England, though in later years this mode of procuring waterfowl appears to have fallen some- 

 what into disuse. Large numbers are brought to the London markets from Holland. Linder- 

 mayer gives the following notes on the mode practised in Greece of netting the Mallard and 

 other Wild Ducks. " The Kopai lake covers several square miles, and is overgrown with flags 

 and rushes ; in this wilderness of rank vegetation there are long passages of open water, these 

 being too deep to allow the water-plants to take root. When the winter approaches these places 

 are fitted with nets made for that purpose ; and on the evenings when the snow drives the Ducks 

 down, a couple of boats are manned, and each provided with a lantern and a bell. These boats 

 are rowed from different directions to the place where the nets are ; the Ducks do not fly, but 

 swim away from the sound of the bell and the light until they get entangled in the nets. Not 

 only Thebes and Livadia are supplied with abundance of Wild Ducks from there, but several 

 hundred have in one day been sent to Athens." Mr. Robert Gray gives a curious instance of 

 the Mallard being caught with the hand, extracted from some notes by a writer in the ' Field 

 Naturalist ' (London, 1833, vol. i. p. 507), who states that a gentleman in Forfarshire, whose 

 property was bounded on one side by the river North Esk, was accustomed to amuse himself by 

 laying down a quantity of grain, and watching the Wild Ducks regaling themselves on it. After 

 continuing the practice for some time, he brought such crowds of Ducks around him that it 

 seemed as if the entire Mallard population of that part of the country were present. With his 

 pockets full of loose grain, this old gentleman went out regularly on his sporting expeditions, 

 and returned with a brace or two of Mallard without ever firing a shot ; for, in their eagerness to 

 gobble up the corn, the birds waddled up to his feet, and all he had to do was to stoop down 

 and quietly seize a victim, which was easily transferred to his capacious pockets. The Mallard 

 feeds chiefly on vegetable food. Mr. Collett writes that in September he found the whole crop 

 full of blueberries {Myrtillus nigra) ; and Schiibeler shot a female in November whose crop was 

 filled with the seeds of a Potamogeton and a lot of small snail-shells not larger than shot. 

 Mr. Benzon states that it is a great epicure, and when the blueberries ( Vaccinium myrtillus) and 

 the berries of the Vaccinium vitis-idcea are ripe one often finds that it has been feeding on these 

 berries, and filling its crop so full that when shot the juice flows out of its mouth. 



The Mallard appears to have rather a tendency towards albinism ; and we have seen several 

 partial albinoes. Mr. Benzon has in his collection a cream-coloured variety from Zeeland, which 

 is brownish yellow on the fore part of the neck. Another, more grey in colour, was procured 

 from the same locality in 1872. 



The birds figured and described are in Dresser's collection ; particulars as to locality &c. are 

 given above. 



