THE MALLARD. 13 
remote period; and it is also known to have been among 
the Chinese, who rear and cultivate them to a very great 
extent. Indeed, it is, I think, in the highest degree 
probable that the duck, in its domestic state, is an 
importation into Europe from the East, where, as I 
believe in every quarter of the globe, the Mallard is a 
common and indigenous native of the fresh waters. 
The Mallard, or Wild Drake, commonly known in the 
Eastern States as the Green-head, westward as the Gray 
Duck, and in Alabama as the English Duck, weighs 
from thirty-six to forty ounces, and measures twenty- 
three inches in length, by thirty-five in breadth. 
The bill is of a yellowish-green color, not very flat, 
about an inch broad, and two and a half long from the 
corners of the mouth to the tip of the nail ; the head and 
upper half of the neck are of a deep, glossy, changeable 
green, terminated in the middle of the neck by a white 
collar, with which it is nearly encircled ; the lower parts 
of the neck, breast and shoulders are of a deep, vinous 
chestnut ; the covering scapular feathers are of a kind of 
silvery white, those underneath rufous, and both are 
prettily crossed with small, waved threads of brown. 
Wing coverts ash, quills brown, and between these 
intervenes the speculwin, or beauty-spot, common in the 
duck tribe, which crosses the wing in a transverse, 
oblique direction. It is of a rich, glossy purple, with 
violet or green reflections, and bordered by a double 
streak of sooty black and pure white. The belly is of a 
4 
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