2IO WILD-FOWL 



singular appearance. I have seen one of these with a 

 mallard's head and the long tail of the sprig-tail duck, 

 an-d others have been discovered. 



The mallard is a fine, large duck, twenty-tvi^o inches 

 in length, both sexes being the same size. It is by far 

 the most abundant of all the water-fowl, and when the 

 sportsman goes to shoot ducks on fresh-water they 

 are usually mallards, the other varieties being more 

 often accessories to a day's mallard shooting. 



The majority of these birds, like the other water- 

 fowl, go north to nest, but many remain in the United 

 States, and were the spring shooting prohibited and 

 the parks or refuges which I have so often urged 

 established, enough of these beautiful fowl would be 

 saved to preserve the race, and the overflow to the 

 open streams and lakes, and especially to the properly 

 regulated shooting preserves of the country, would 

 continue to furnish sport and food for all time to 

 come. 



Herbert Job found the mallards breeding in North 

 Dakota in June, and secured an excellent photograph 

 of the nest. I saw many young mallards on the ponds 

 and small lakes in the Devil's Lake region of that 

 State, which were unable to fly in August and must of 

 course have been bred there. On the reservation of 

 the Cut Head Sioux there are hundreds of small lakes, 

 and the Cheyenne River, like a big winding slough, 

 forms its southern boundary. Here is one 6f the best 

 places in the country for a refuge for the ducks, and 

 where the experiment of so preserving them might be 

 tried at small expense. 



I found the mallards tremendously abundant in the 



