WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 173 



jority, after remaining with us some time, go 

 still further north to breed and rear their young. 

 Their northern limit is in a very high latitude. 

 The mallard is the most beautiful of all ducks, 

 except the wood-duck, and naturalists are agreed 

 that the common breeds of domesticated ducks 

 have sprung from the former. It crosses readily 

 enough with tame ducks, to my knowledge, and 

 the produce of the cross are prolific, though wild 

 and apt to go away with the wild mallards in 

 the fall. The mallards with us make their 

 nests about the middle of April in an average 

 season. When out snipe-shooting about the 1st 

 of May, I have found mallards' nests already 

 containing seven or eight eggs. The nests are 

 built near the water in some secluded marsh or 

 lonely swamp, on tussocks of grass near the edges 

 of sloughs, and in wet river-bottoms. And some- 

 times I have found the nest of the mallard on the 

 margin of a pond in the prairie or the pasture 

 fields. The nest is nicely made of dry grass 

 and sedge, and by the time the female is ready 

 to sit it is lined with soft, loose feathers, just 

 as the nest of the tame duck is. The eggs are 

 from twelve to sixteen in number, in color of 

 a greenish blue cast, and very much like those 



