THE MALLARD— ANAS BOSCHAS. 



ALLAN BROOKS. 



The habits of this, the commonest of all 

 ducks, are so well known that it would 

 be useless to write further of them; but it 

 is strange that in spite of its abundance a 

 good illustration of a mallard is a compar- 

 ative rarity. It is nearly always represented 

 as a long bodied, ungainly duck, but as any- 

 one knows, who has kept tame mallards or 

 has carefully studied the wild ones, it is one 

 of the neatest and most graceful of ducks. 



The late John Hancock, of Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne, used to impress on his pupils the 

 fact that a duck had a boat shaped, or oval 

 body, by making a duck out of 2 ovals, one 

 for the head, and the other for the body. 



GROUND PLAN. 



Kuelemans, one of the greatest of or- 

 nithological artists, keeps strictly to this 

 form, and his pictures of ducks are models 

 for the taxidermist or the artist to study; 

 though even his representation of mallards, 

 in Dresser's " Birds of Europe," is some- 

 what marred by the yellow iris of the drake. 



A capital picture of mallards can be seen 

 in the August number of the New Illus- 

 trated magazine for '98, drawn by Archi- 

 bald Thorburn. Every duck shooter would 

 endorse this as a splendid representation 

 of mallards in repose. 



SIDE ELEVATION. 



On the Pacific coast, after a good salmon 

 run, the mallards ascend the rivers to their 

 sources, after the ova and decaying bodies 

 of the salmon; also for the large quantities 

 of maggots that can be shovelled up from 

 every dead fish. It is a curious sight at 

 this time to find great flocks of mallards 

 amid most uncongenial surroundings; of- 

 ten in some narrow, heavily timbered 

 mountain canyon; with a mountain tor- 

 rent tumbling over the rocks at the bottom 

 of it. They run about nimbly over the 

 rocks and stones, after their filthy garbage, 

 more like a flock of sandpipers than ducks. 

 After feeding thus for a few days, they be- 

 come fearfully rank; but a salmon fed duck 

 can always be told by smelling the feathers 

 of the breast, which emit a strong odor 

 even after the bird has taken to clean living 

 again. It takes at least a month of clean 

 feeding to make the bird fit for the table. 



SHOOTING THE SCHUTE. 

 '77 



