Mallard and Teal. 



253 



if the weather is severe, seeks the sea-shore, where it 

 is to be seen foraging industriously for small molluscs, 

 insects, and little fishes. The extension of draining, 

 and the taking in of wet heaths and waste lands, has 

 somewhat curtailed 

 its numbers, but in 

 some favourable dis- 

 tricts it is still quite 

 common. It is well 

 worth notice, were it 

 only for the fact that 

 it is the bird from 

 which all our common 

 domesticated ducks 

 are derived ; and 

 when we contrast it 

 with them, we see 



once more how man, when he tames and subdues the 

 lower creatures to his own uses, at once improves and 

 injures. The mallard is perhaps the swiftest in flight 

 of all the ducks, making a peculiar whistling sound 

 with its strong wing 

 feathers as it goes, 

 and, if suddenly dis- 

 turbed, it rises up 

 into the air, recovers 

 itself suddenly, and 

 is off. 



The common teal 

 is one of the smallest 

 of the ducks, very 

 nimble and light in 



the water, and also very pretty, though hardly so hand- 

 some as the pintail, but, unlike it, is very far from shy, 



