THE MALLARD’S RENDEZVOUS 
‘The gray duck and the dipper come, 
The brant-geese from the ocean-foam, 
The brilliant mallard, and the teal 
With eye of light and wing of steel, 
All gather in the Autumn day 
To haunt the waters of the bay.” 
McLellan. 
was a bright morning in early Spring, last year, that I had 
the very good fortune to locate a Mallard duck’s nest. I 
say good fortune, for here in southern Ohio, the finding 
of a Mallard’s nest is a lucky discovery’. 
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While tramping through a weed field on this particular 
morningy I noticed a suspicious-looking tussock of grass, with 
an opening in one side. Being always on the lookout for some- 
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thing new in the realm of birdland, I examined this tuft and to 
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my surprise and delight, I found seven greenish-gray eggs o 
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the Mallard duck. Thev were neatly covered over with dowi 
plucked from the breast of the female so that they might retairCA- 
their heat, while she, in all probability, was taking her break- 'AT 
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fast ,&nd a swim at a stream that flowed some hundred yards 
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from the field wherein the nest was found. 
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