The Mallard 



chain-of-lakes ; and here wild ducks of almost every variety accept man's 

 truce, and show themselves with increasing freedom, up to the very 

 point of accepting food from the hand. Especially the Mallards, else- 

 where the wariest of their kind, here find shelter and sustenance; and here, 

 too, wonderful to relate, they are nesting in ever increasing numbers. 

 In the summer of 1916 Messrs. Harrison and Squires 1 made a careful 

 count of the resident (wild) Mallards of Golden Gate Park and found 

 200, old and young. Although this park is thronged daily by thousands, 

 and on Sundays by tens of thousands of people, the business of the birds 

 was conducted 

 with the same 

 adroitness of 

 secrecy which 

 would have been 

 observed in any 

 secluded marsh 

 of the interior; 

 and that business 

 thrived solely be- 

 cause of the free- 

 dom from inter- 

 ference which 

 was guaranteed 

 them by vigilant 

 officials, and by 

 the very self-neu- 

 tralizing numbers 

 of the public. 



The mating 

 of the Mallards is 

 a rather serious 

 affair, inasmuch 

 as a bird once 

 widowed remains 

 u n m a t e d 

 throughout the 

 ensuing season. 

 And since mates 

 are selected in 

 January, or early 



'See Condor. Vol. XIX.. 

 Mar. 1917, p. 59. 



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THE LIMIT 



'MALLARD SLOUGH. I9O0" 



Pholo by F. H. Holmes 



'755 



