42 AMERICAN GAME. 
wild oat, zizania aquatica, is plentiful, they are found in 
very great numbers, especially in the spring and sum- 
mer time, nor are they unfrequently killed on the snipe- 
grounds of New Jersey, around Chatham, Pine-brook, 
and the Parcippany meadows on the beautiful Passaic, 
and on the yet more extensive grounds on the Seneca 
and Cayuga outlets, in the vicinity of Montezuma 
Salina, and the salt regions of New York. 
In the shallows of the lake and river St. Clair, above 
Detroit, on the Liwviére wu Canards, and the marshes of 
Chatham in Canada East, all along the shores of Lake 
Erie on the Canadian side, especially about Long Point, 
and in the Grand River, they literally swarm; while in 
all the rivers, and shallow rice-lakes on the northern 
shores of Lake Huron, which are the breeding-places of 
their countless tribes, they are found, from the breaking 
up of the ice to the ‘shutting up of the bays and coves in 
which they feed, in numbers absolutely numberless. 
The Mallard is generally believed to be the parent 
and progenitor of the domestic duck, which, although 
far superior in beauty of plumage and grace of form and 
deportment, it very closely resembles; yet when or 
where it was domesticated, is a question entirely dark 
and never to be settled. It is certain that the domestic 
duck was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, so late 
as to the Christian era, although the paintings in the 
Egyptian tombs demonstrate beyond a peradventure 
that it was familiar to that wonderful people from a very 
