272 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Eange outside tlie British Islands. — The Mallard may be said 
to be an inhabitant of the temperate portions of the Paltearctic 
and Nearctic Regions, not breeding north of the Arctic Circle, 
but throughout Europe, including the Mediterranean countries, 
and across the temperate portions of Asia, and wintering in 
India and China. It even breeds in Cashmere. In America 
it breeds in the temperate latitudes, and wanders south in 
winter, when it is found as far south as Panama. 
Hahits.- — The tame Duck of our farmyards, which is suffi- 
ciently well-known to preclude any special description of its 
habits, is a derivative of the true Wild Duck, but the latter- 
bird in its native habitat is decidedly a wary bird. 
The Mallard is a very interesting species to study where 
one has an opportunity of so doing, as its habits are very 
varied. Sometimes numbers of nests will be found in the 
growing grass of a meadow close to a lake, at other times 
most curious situations are chosen for the nest. In the 
choice of a situation the Duck is very cautious, and it is 
often not discovered until the appearance of the young ones 
betrays its situation. It is especially where there are plenty of 
foxes that the wariness of the Duck is developed, and at 
Avington Park— where the head-keeper once told me that he 
had known forty sitting ducks to be taken off their nests in a 
season by foxes — I have found some curious sites for the 
nest. One was in a dell, quite half a mile from the lake, and it 
was artfully concealed under some outgrowing roots of a tree ; 
another was made in the hollow betw'een two wide-spreading 
limbs of an oak, about ten feet from the ground, and quite a 
mile away from any water. Mr. De Winton has known a nest 
to be built in the thick ivy on the wall of a house. Mr. Robert 
Read also tells me that he has found it in the open amongst 
heather, under a rock amongst bracken, in rushes by the 
water-side, and in the hollow of a pollard-tree, while in 1894, he 
found a nest on the Thames with ten eggs and one egg of a 
Pheasant. 
Like the tame Duck, the Mallard is almost omnivorous in 
its choice of food, many kinds of aquatic plants and weeds, as 
well as all kinds of water-insects, worms and slugs, forming its 
staple diet, but it will also eat grain, acorns, &c. 
