388 FEATHERED GAME 
and nimble movements of the mallard, wood 
duck or pintail. 
These are the children of the frozen seas, 
abundant only in Arctic waters and only com- 
ing into the warmer latitudes when the north 
is given over to the dreary reign of night and 
winter. Their migrations extend as far south 
as the Middle Atlantic States, but they are rare 
birds on all the coast line. An occasional 
straggler is seen in the Great Lakes, and there 
is one record of a male bird being taken on the 
Mississippi, probably having been blown out of 
his course, his reckoning lost, and he very will- 
ing to go back to sea, for his cargo was nothing 
but Mississippi mud. They are more common 
on the Pacific coast than on the eastern edge of 
our continent, but in the western waters do not 
come so far south; probably because the same 
latitudes are much warmer than with us. 
In form and habits they are much like the 
common Eiders. In his markings the male dif- 
fers from the male of the common variety in 
that he has a remarkable frontal process, most 
pronounced during the breeding months and 
nearly disappearing after this season,—a large 
and curious bulge upon the bridge of his nose, 
