The Mallard 
27 
The Adult Female 
With ducks, as with game birds, there are two very well marked types— 
a light one and a dark one — and amongst the surface-feeding species this 
variation is most noticeable, especially in the case of the female. 
When November has set in and the female wild duck has assumed her 
full winter dress, w^e may often see, in the same flock, very dark brown 
females with heavily spotted breasts, whilst others have a very rich red-brown 
tinge, with throats almost white, and breasts almost entirely free of spots. 
These two forms retain their own distinctive types throughout the winter 
and till late in the spring (May, in fact), when there is sometimes a slight 
influx of new feathers on the breast, especially where the bird has heavily 
plucked herself of both down and feathers for the ' building-up ' of her nest. 
The whole plumage then (by means of a colour change) becomes much 
darker, especially about the head, breast, and scapulars, and the spots, which 
in the winter were hidden under the feathers of the light-type female, work 
down to the surface. Thus these light-form birds become in the breeding 
season but little different from their darker sisters. That the two different 
types are still found amongst breeding birds is shown in the coloured 
photograph facing page 26, where examples of each are given. Whether the 
nesting female moults in the summer or in the autumn, the change is entirely 
governed by the breeding of the bird ; that is to say, if a wild duck, after laying 
in April, hatches and rears her brood, she will moult her quills so as to fly at 
the same time as they do ; but if, on the other hand, her nest is destroyed, she 
will not moult so soon, but will lay again, and then cast her primaries about 
the time her second family are on the wing. You may, therefore, find adult 
females moulting and sometimes incapable of flight at any time between the 
months of June and September. 
By August, then, through the wear and tear of domestic duties, the 
plumage of the breeding females has, as a rule, assumed a rusty, worn 
E 2 
