The Mallard 19 
from their best clothing into their best again, unless it be that this change of 
colour, blending so remarkably as it does with that of the dying reeds, is 
necessary to ensure his safety in the fortnight of practical helplessness w^hich 
takes place in August ? 
That, no doubt, is the explanation of this interesting circumstance, unless, 
indeed, some mysterious analogy may be found in the habits of the human 
race in certain parts of the world. In countries so far apart as Corsica and 
China the custom is, and has been from time immemorial, for a man to take 
to his bed as soon as his wife retires for what is commonly known as her 
confinement, and to remain there, not only during the interesting period, but 
long after the patient has risen and resumed her household duties. There, 
shyly and with a certain sense of humiliation, he receives the congratulations 
of his friends, while he himself is the subject of sympathetic pangs which 
doctors solemnly assert are not wholly imaginary. Perhaps, when we can 
explain the mystery of the Couvade, we may be able to say something more 
about the metamorphosis of the drake. Let us look at it in three different 
stages. 
Stage I. — In England as early as May 20, and in Scotland about July i, 
the cheeks of the Mallard drake show the first sign of the autumnal change. 
If you pick the bird up and closely examine his cheek feathers you will 
notice that they have grown to their fullest extent, and that, from the root of 
the quill to three-quarters of the way down the feather, the dark colour has 
changed to a pale straw, only the end remaining dark green. Look now on top 
of the head; there, too, a slight change is noticeable. During the first fortnight 
of period embraced in this stage there is no real moult of the head, but only 
a change of colour, while on the body an odd, new, brown feather may 
possibly appear on the top of the scapulars. Otherwise, there are as yet no 
new feathers on the surface, though numbers are now forcing their way 
outwards, and the old feathers are just beginning to fall. In Stage i, the 
colour-change often extends as far down as the white collar, which becomes 
grey and brown just as it is about to give place to a new one. 
D 2 
