+ BULLETIN 720, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
SEDGES (21.62 PER CENT). 
Practically all the sedges contribute to the diet of the mallard. 
Their fruits, or akenes (the seeds with their immediately investing 
coats), are of most importance, although the stems, leaves, root- 
stocks, and tubers also are eaten. Seeds or other parts of bulrushes 
were found in the greatest number of stomachs. Unidentified bul-. 
_ rush seeds occurred in 540 gizzards, from 400 to 1,200 in some. The 
akenes of river bulrush (Scirpus fluviatilis) were identified in 45 
stomachs, and those of Scirpus cubensis in 286. No fewer than 
28,160 akenes of the latter species were obtained from the crop and 
gizzard of a single mallard. Akenes of sedges of the genus Fim- 
bristylis occurred in 279 stomachs, the largest number in any one 
being 1,000. Eighty-seven hundred seeds of a Cyperus were taken 
from a single gizzard; tubers of these sedges also were found. Saw 
grass (Cladium) is rather important among the sedges fed upon by 
the mallard, and its seeds were identified in 246 stomachs, 1,100 © 
being the largest number found. 
GRASSES (13.39 PER CENT). 
Wild rice (Zizania aquatica) is the most important of the grasses 
fed upon by the mallard. The value of this plant as a duck food is 
not exaggerated in popular opinion, and it is unfortunate that the 
plant is almost as erratic and disappointing in its responses to 
attempts at propagation as it is valuable as a duck food in the 
places it chooses to grow. Wild rice was found in 91 of the stomachs 
examined for this report, and no fewer than 1,200 to 2,400 kernels 
had been devoured by single birds. The kernels are sometimes 
taken in sprouting condition, and the leaves of the plant occasionally 
are eaten. 
Among the more important of other wild grasses represented in the 
diet are: Wild millet (Hchinochloa crus-galli), switch and crab grasses ~ 
(Panicum), rice cut grass (Homalocenchrus), salt-marsh grass (Spar- 
tina), and white marsh or cut grass (Zizaniopsis). 
Grain, which is largely produced by plants of the grass family, 
may best be considered in the present connection. Oats, corn, 
barley, wheat, buckwheat, and rice were found and together consti- 
tute 2.99 per cent of the totalfood. Rice only was certainly gleaned by 
the birds from cultivated fields and all of it was waste. Mallards 
eagerly feed on rice in the shock when opportunity occurs. Thus in 
1917, when various factors delayed harvesting until the arrival of 
wild ducks from the north, mallards destroyed about $35,000 worth 
of rice in the vicinity of De Witt and Stuttgart, Ark. Probably 
all the other grains found in the stomachs of the birds examined 
were put out as bait for the birds. This is not to say that mal- 
lards do not feed in grain fields, for they are well known to do so. 
