142 
The Mallard 
the season. Mallards are now comparatively rare there. Prof. W. W. 
Cooke records that as late as the winter of 1893-94 a gunner at Big i 
Lake, Arkansas, sold 8,000 Mallards, and 120,000 were sent to market 
during the season from that place alone. During the settlement of the 1 
West, hundreds of tons were killed for their feathers by negroes, Indians, 
half-breeds and whites, and the bodies of most of them were thrown 
away. Mallards are still plentiful in winter in the Southwest, though 
decreasing. 
The Mallard breeds normally in the northern half of the United j 
States, west of Pennsylvania, in Alaska, and in all 
Breeding Canada west of Hudson Bay; also in Greenland. 
Habits East of Hudson Bay, and throughout the northern 
Atlantic States, its place is taken largely by the Black Duck. 
Its nest is usually placed on the ground near a marsh or in a tussock 
of grass, and more rarely among the bushes on some near-by hillside. 
It is composed mainly of coarse grasses and weeds, and often is lined ; 
with down from the mother’s breast. The large, smooth eggs are 
dingy white, and vary from six to ten. The young when hatched soon | 
take to the water, where they are watched over and defended by the ! 
female. 
The Mallards remain in the) North until the ponds and rivers freeze, 
when they begin their southward journey, and spend the winter mainly 
in the Gulf States, in northern Mexico, and along the Pacific Coast. 
Like all fresh-water ducks the Mallard is largely a vegetarian, but 
it prefers soft, succulent, vegetable matter when such is to be found, 
and probably cannot thrive without a considerable ration of animal food 
as well, of which all our wild ducks are fond. This bird becomes of 
considerable economic value to the farmer at times, because of the nature 
of its food. It sometimes attacks sprouting or ripened grain, but like 
most fresh-water fowl it is undoubtedly of service in destroying such 
insects as locusts and army-worms, which sometimes become serious 
pests. 
Professor Aughey found in the stomachs of ten Mallards taken in 
Nebraska 244 locusts and 260 other insects, besides mollusks and other 
aquatic food. Examination of 126 stomachs of the Mallard made at 
the Biological Survey revealed 17 per cent, animal- 
Food matter food and 83 per cent, vegetable. The most 
important items of the animal food found were 
dragon-fly nymphs, fly-larvae, grasshoppers, aquatic beetles and hemip- 
terans ; bivalve and univalve mollusks, earthworms and crustaceans. The 
principal elements of the vegetable food are seeds of smartweeds ( Poly- 
gonum ), seeds and tubers of pondweed ( Potamogeton ) and of sedges. 
Other items of importance are the seeds of wild rice ( Zizania ) and other 
grasses, of burhead (Sparganium) , hornwort (Ceratophyllum) , water- 
lily ( Brasenia ), and widgeon-grass ( Ruppia ). A great many vegetable 
substances of less importance are included in the Mallard’s diet, of which 
