CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 75 



naturalist. He reports seeing a skin of this species in a small 

 collection of birds skins made at Augpalartok, in the District of 

 Uppernavik, which was collected in that vicinity in 1892. (J. A. 

 Allen in The Auk, Vol. XIII, p. 244, i8g6.) 



XLVI. ANAS LiNN^us. 1758. 



•132. Mallard. 



Anas boschas Linn. 1758. 



Breeds in both Inspectorates of Greenland and is not rare. 

 {Arct. Man.) A rather common bird ; most common in the winter 

 months, a few breed at Ivigtut, Greenland. {Hagerup.) It is 

 very rare in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and only occasional 

 in New Brunswick. It becomes more common in Quebec, espe- 

 cially in the Montreal district, and in western Ontario, as a 

 migrant, it assembles in great flocks and feeds in the marshes 

 along Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, where a few pairs remain to 

 breed. 



This is the most abundant duck in the Northwest Territories and 

 British Columbia, breeding near ponds and lakes from Lat. 49° to 

 the borders of the Barren Lands. It is not a bird of the sea-coast, 

 but prefers the ponds and lakes of the interior. It was breed- 

 ing in Vermillion Lake at Banff, 1891, and in Eagle Pass in the 

 Gold Range, B.C., in May, 1890. It is quite common in Alaska 

 and breeds as far north as Kotzebue Sound, according to Nelson. 

 On the Alaskan shores it is not common, but the Aleutian Islands 

 and Unalaska are the feeding grounds of great numbers in 

 winter. One or two pairs breed on St. Paul Island, Behring Sea, 

 each year. A few winter at Vernon, B.C. (Brooks.) 



Breeding Notes. — On May 9th, 1892, at Deep Lake, near In- 

 dian Head, Assa., found a nest containing eight eggs about fifty 

 yards from the lake, in a bunch of weeds, it was made of dry 

 grass, lined with down from the bird's breast. I have found many 

 nests of this duck in various parts of the country. Sometimes 

 they are quite near the water, and at other times several hundred 

 yards away. The nest is in a hole in the ground, rather bulky, 

 made of grass and weeds, lined with down. Some of them breed 

 very early in the spring, so early in fact, that I have found eggs 

 cracked with the frost. 



