﻿MALLARD, OR WILD DUCK 87 



NA TA TORES. A NA TIDJE . 



PLATE CCXLVII. 



MALLARD, OR WILD DUCK. 



ANAS BOSCHAS. 



The Mallard or Wild Duck is a well-known British bird, 

 indigenous in many parts of the country, but receiving a vast 

 accession to its numbers on the approach of winter, at which 

 season they are driven southward by the inclemency of the 

 weather, from those more northern countries in which their 

 numbers are chiefly multiplied. 



In consequence of the increase of cultivation in Great 

 Britain, the numbers of this species that remain to breed, are 

 very much reduced, and the profit arising from the decoys 

 in which they were formerly taken in great abundance, must 

 necessarily be much diminished. 



The geographical distribution of the present species is far 

 and wide, beginning at the polar circle, and extending over 

 all countries, to the equator, and its numbers are more 

 abundant than those of any other duck. In the most 

 northern countries the Mallard is a migratory species, in the 

 temperate climes indigenous, and in the southern a winter 

 visitant. Many remain in our latitudes to breed, and only 

 leave the spots they inhabit, when the frost closes the waters 



VOL. VI. I 



