196 
THE MALLARD. 
liant surface." Now, we all know that this garment 
of air would have added considerably to the natural 
levity of the bird. It ought to have had a roquelaure 
of lead, not of air. " It seemed to quiver," con- 
tinues Monsieur Herbert. There would have ap- 
peared no quivering, had the bird been really walking 
on terra jirma. 
If the water ouzel, which is specifically lighter 
than water, can manage, by some inherent power, to 
walk on the ground at the bottom of a rivulet, then 
there is great reason to hope that we, who are 
heavier than air, may, any day, rise up into it, un- 
assisted by artificial apparatus, such as wings, gas, 
steam, or broom-staff. 
NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE MALLARD. 
This bird yields to none of our wild water-fowl in 
loveliness of plumage, while it far surpasses most of 
them in the excellent flavour of its flesh. Having 
been completely subjugated by man, it can now be 
obtained either in its enlarged dimensions, acquired 
by superabundance of food picked up at the barn- 
door of its owner, or in its original small and compact 
form, on which a precarious subsistence in the field 
of freedom has hitherto worked no visible change. 
There cannot be a doubt that the wild duck and 
the domestic duck have had one and the same origin. 
They are still intimate ; for they breed together, 
