214 
THE MALLARD. 
tlie imcler parts, which are minutely nndulated with grey. 
The fore part of the back is brown, and the wings grey 
and brown, in waving lines, with black, green, and purple 
MALLARD. 
patches, and blue and white edgings to some of the larger 
feathers : the tail feathers are brownish grey, broadly 
edged with white, the four middle ones being black, and 
having an upward curve. The bill of the male is red- 
dish yellow, tinged with green, and the feet orange. Such 
is the Wild Duck which we often see dangling from hooks 
in poulterers' shops, or from sticks carried across the 
shoulders of street vendors, whose musical cries carry 
one's thoughts away to the frozen fens and wild wintry 
moors where the snow-drift lies deep, and flir away in the 
white landscape may be traced the footsteps of the fovder ; 
or, it may be, we think of a softer and more pleasant aspect 
of nature, such as Gisbornc describes — 
To form its haunt by crowding alders veiled, 
AVhere mantling on the still unfrozen flood 
Aquatic weeds breathe warm. At our a2:)proacli 
Alarmed, on sounding wing the Wild Duck soars 
And plies to distant solitudes her course. 
