DUCKS 49 



General habits. — The gadwall is essentially a fresh-wate;r 

 duck, but in Alabama is found most frequently in the brackish 

 waters of Mobile Bay. It feeds in shallow, muddy bays and 

 creeks, generally in small flocks of its own kind, but some- 

 times associated with the widgeon. In Duckers Bay, where I 

 found these birds common in December, they were feeding at 

 night and with all the other ducks left, en masse, on the firing 

 of the first gun in the morning. They returned shortly be- 

 fore dark to roost in the shallow waters of the bay. 



Food habits. — The food of the gadwall, as determined by 

 stomach examinations made in the Biological Survey, consists 

 almost exclusively (97.85 per cent) of vegetable matter, of 

 which pondweeds (including widgeon grass) are the most 

 prominent item, furnishing 42 per cent of the total. The 

 bird feeds chiefly on the leaves and stems of these plants, 

 sometimes also on the buds and tubers. Other plants exten- 

 sively eaten are algae, coontail or hornwort (Ceratophyllum) , 

 various wild grasses, seeds of sedges, and the tubers of a 

 species of arrowhead known as the delta potato.^ The animal 

 food of the gadwall amounts to only about 2 per cent of the 

 total and consists mainly of snails and aquatic insects. The 

 stomachs of 4 gadwalls killed in Alabama contained leaves 

 of wild celery (VaMisneria) and pondweed (Najas) and seeds 

 of sedges. 



BALDPATE; WIDGEON: Mareca americana (Gmelin). 



State records. — The baldpate, or American widgeon, as it 

 is more often called, occurs not uncommonly as a migrant and 

 winter visitor. Dr. Avery speaks of it as seen occasionally 

 in fall and spring at Greensboro, arriving about the first of 

 March.t McCormack records capturing one at Leighton on 

 March 17, 1891, and seeing a flock of 7 on the '23d of the same 

 month, and several others on the 27th.* Gunners report the 

 bird rather common on the Tennessee River in the vicinity of 

 Muscle Shoals. In Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound it 

 occurs in some numbers. One was taken near Mobile, Novem- 



tMsbbott, D. C, Food habits of seven species of American shoal-water duclcs: Bull. 

 RflP TT a DMit. Aer.. DP. 2-10, 1920. 



tAvSy W C^er. Field, vol. 21. p. B45. 1884; vol. 34, p. 684. 1890. 

 •LeSiton (Alkbama) News. vol. 2, No. 2B, January 2. 1802. 



