ELEVEN IMPORTANT WILD-DUCK POODS. 7 
THALIA. 
VALUE AS DUCK FOOD. 
The writer's only experience with thalia (species divaricata) as a 
wild-duck food was on St. Vincent Island, Florida. Here a sloueh 
filled with a tall growth of these elegant plants was a favorite resort 
of ducks, especially mallards, which could always be flushed from 
Fig. 4.— Range of frogbit. 
this place. However, at the time of the writer's visit only one 
bird was obtained and its stomach contained a few thalia seeds. 
Another mallard collected at a later date in the same place, by the 
late Dr. R. V. Pierce, had fed almost exclusively on these large seeds, 
and its gullet and gizzard were well filled by 144 entire seeds and 
fragments of others. 
The evidence is sufficient to show that thalia has great possibilities 
as a wild-duck food. The seeds are large and nutritious and are 
