MALLAMD 97 



The table suggests that the height of the nesting season is in April, 

 perhaps the latter part of the month. Many of the nests which are 

 found after this time probably represent instances of second laying 

 where the first clutch was destroyed. 



The Mallard nests with equal freedom in the marsh lands sur- 

 rounding our bays, the rivers and ponds of the great interior valleys, 

 and the mountain lakes of the Sierra Nevada even as high a"s Lake 

 Tahoe, elevation 6,225 feet. A secluded spot, usually not far from 

 • water, is most often selected for the nest site. Advantage is taken of 

 any shelter such as willows, tules, weeds or tall grass in which the 

 structure can be concealed. At Lake Tahoe, Ray (1903, pp. 48-49) 

 found Mallard nests in the wiry grass which grew on sandspits, and 

 about Lower Klamath Lake, Siskiyou County, H. C. Bryant (1914e, 

 p. 231) found the species nesting on dry flats covered with sage brush, 

 though not far from water. More rarely nests are located in grain 

 fields and may then be some distance from water. In many instances 

 marsh nests are on such damp ground that the eggs may be stained 

 by contact with the moist nest materials. About Stow Lake, in Golden 

 Crate Park, San Francisco, nests are hidden in the shrubbery which 

 lines the inner shore of the lake. The nest itself is constructed of 

 plant materials of various sorts such as fresh and dried grasses and 

 clover, and to these is added a warm lining of down feathers from 

 the breast of the female. The structure is large; one found by Bar- 

 low (1893, p. 38) near San Jose, Santa Clara County, measured 

 eighteen inches in diameter. 



The eggs in a complete set number from five to fourteen. The data 

 at hand do not permit of obtaining a satisfactory statistical average, 

 but our impression is that the average number in a set is about nine 

 or ten. 



The female alone incubates the eggs. She guards them very 

 solicitously, seldom leaving the nest voluntarily except under cover 

 of darkness and then only after carefully covering the eggs with 

 down. When on the nest she will even cover herself with leaves and 

 grasses to assure better concealment, though her own dull mottled 

 plumage would seem alone sufficient for this purpose. Occasionally 

 a female will sit so closely that she will allow herself to be taken on 

 the nest, or the eggs to be removed from beneath her. On being 

 flushed from the nest or when with young, the female nearly always 

 employs the ruse of lameness or of a broken wing to lead the intruder 

 away. The period of incubation is four weeks. During incubation 

 the male can usually be found in the near vicinity of the nest, but he 

 takes no part in the duties of incubation or of rearing the young. It 

 is during this period that he begins the molt into the eclipse plumage. 

 The Mallard returns to the same locality to nest year after year. 



