The Mallard 



General Range. — Northern Hemisphere, south to Abyssinia, northern India, 

 China, and Japan. In America breeding from the Arctic Coast and Greenland south 

 through the United States, except the southeastern quarter, broadly, to New Mexico 

 and Lower California; wintering south from Alaska and the northern tier of states to 

 the Lesser Antilles and Panama. 



Authorities. — Woodhouse, Rep. Sitgreaves Exped. Col. R., 1853, p. 103 

 (common in Calif.); H. C. Bryant, Condor, vol. xvi., 1914, pp. 219, 227, 230 (desc. 

 nest and eggs, etc.); McAtee, U. S. Dept. Agric, Bull. no. 720, 1918, p. 2 (food). 



THIS, THE CONTEMPORARY ancestor of our domestic duck, 

 enjoys a distribution almost world-wide, and has been from earliest times 

 the best known of swimming birds. Although nowhere in America so 

 abundant as formerly, it is still the standard with which we compare 

 all other species, both in point of excellence and in numbers. Being 

 somewhat less gregarious than the Teals and the Sea-ducks, the Mallards 

 are found in pairs or small parties, wherever a swampy pool or a widening 

 of the brook affords a resting place, and one may easily recognize their 

 fitness for domestication, in the fact that they can content themselves 

 with a little six by eight puddle, when the whole world lies before them. 



While on the water the birds spend much time "tipping" for food. 

 Heads under water and tails pointing skyward, they search the bottom 

 for mollusks and crustaceans, or feed upon various kinds of aquatic 

 plants which choke sluggish streams or line the edges of ponds. When 

 hunger is satisfied, they frequently disport themselves upon the water, 

 diving, throwing water over their backs, and splashing about with great 

 ado, much like boys in the old swimming hole. Nights, especially in 

 thickly settled regions, are habitually spent feeding, either by dabbling, 

 or in long forays to stubble-fields, and woods where acorns abound, so 

 that much of the daytime is spent sleeping just on shore, with one leg 

 drawn up and the head tucked comfortably under the wing. Upon 

 being surprised, the ducks rise with a great outcry, in which the female 

 voice is recognized as being a little the louder, and they make off with 

 rapid, strong wing-strokes, which can carry them, it is believed, a hundred 

 miles an hour. 



The Mallard is perhaps the wariest, as it is certainly the most adapt- 

 able, of all our ducks. These two qualities have enabled the bird to main- 

 tain itself after a fashion in the face of persecution the most intense, 

 the most unremitting, and until lately the least restrained of any to which 

 birds have ever been subjected. That this bird has survived at all is a 

 marvel; and that it is ready to become an important economic factor 

 whenever and wherever a reasonable degree of protection shall be ex- 

 tended to it, is a piece of good fortune beyond our deserts. 



1752 



