48 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



The animal food was largely composed of raoUusks, which 

 furnished over 12 per cent of the total; the common blue 

 mussel (Mytilus) furnished the most important single item, 

 having been found in 35 of the 622 stomachs examined by 

 McAtee; snails of various species were frequently taken, no 

 less than 650 having been found in one stomach. Crusta- 

 ceans, including barnacles, shrimp, crawfishes, and crabs, 

 composed about 8 per cent of the food ; insects were taken in 

 smaller numbers, as well as marine worms and a few fishes 

 and their eggs.f 



Ten stomachs from southern Alabama contained small 

 snails, sedge tubers, the foliage of various aquatic plants, 

 acorns, seeds of the gum tree (Nyssa), and small quantities of 

 insects and fiddler crabs. 



[FLORIDA DUCK: Anas fulvigula Ridgway. 



The Florida duck, or the western race, the mottled duck, possibly 

 occurs in small numbers on the coast of Alabama, but as yet no speci- 

 mens have been taken. Outsell observed several flocks of "black mal- 

 lards," numbering 3 tp 5 individuals, on Petit Bois Island between July 

 28 and September 1, and 3 individuals in the brackish lakes west of 

 Orange Beach, on September 13, 1911. It is uncertain, however, whether 

 these were the present species or the black duck of the North. No one 

 fortunate enough to discover a nest or young of black mallard in Ala- 

 bama should fail to secure definite evidence of the species to which it 

 belongs.] 



GAD WALL; GRAY DUCK: Chaulelasmus streperm 

 (Linnaeus) . 



State records. — The gadwall occurs commonly on the coast 

 as a winter resident. It is apparently most numerous in 

 Mobile Bay, but is reported also from Mississippi Sound and 

 is occasionally taken on the lower Tensaw River. Five were 

 killed by Dr. S. C. Frederic in Mobile Bay, November 7, 1915, 

 with the first flight from the North; in Duckers Bay, Decem- 

 ber 2 to 4, 1915, I found them common, and secured 2 speci- 

 mens. Two single birds were taken at Nigger Lake, Novem- 

 ber 30 and December 2, 1915. This species is recorded as 

 occurring in Louisiana from early October to March 15,* and 

 it should be found in Alabama at about the same period. 



j-McAtee, W. L., Bull. 720, U. S. Dept. Aer., pp. 10-14, 1918. 

 'Beyvt, Allison, and Kopman, The Auk, vol. 24, p. 818, 1907. 



