DUCKS 
PLASHING, waddling ducklings 
make pretty pets, although they 
have not the intelligence of geese. 
Those used merely for pets are the 
Call, and the East India ducks, which 
are the bantams in the duck family. 
The Mallards arevery often used for pets because this 
species is still wild, and therefore, more interesting. 
The Mallards are beautiful creatures; thedrake’shead 
is irridescent green, which matches the broad wing 
bar, bordered with white. There is a ring of white 
also about the neck, which contrasts strongly with 
the chestnut and red breast. The female is also 
beautiful, but her brown, grey and penciled feathers 
are fitted to render her quite invisible when on her 
nest. The young are speckled like their mother. 
The wild Mallard is still rather plentiful in 
America, and may be seen on most of our inland 
waters during the migrating season. It nests chiefly 
from Labrador northward. When wild, these ducks 
are said to pair as do the geese. The nest is built 
on the ground usually, and rarely in trees. It is 
made of grass and leaves and other rubbish, and is 
lined with down which the mother plucks from her 
own breast. This duck lays from six to twelve pale 
grey eggs tinged with blue-green. When she leaves 
the nest, she carefully pulls over the eggs a coverlet 
of down and leaves. She sits for twenty-eight days; 
her downy little ducklings start for the water soon 
after they break through the shell; sometimes the 
mother has to help them on this journey by carrying 
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