170 MALLARD.
would shoot from fifty to a hundred and twenty in a day, thus supplying
the plantation with excellent food.
The flight of the Mallard is swift, strong, and well sustained. It rises
either from the ground or from the water at a single spring, and flies almost
perpendicularly for ten or fifteen yards, or, if in a thick wood, until
quite above the tops of the tallest trees, after which it moves horizontally.
If alarmed, it never rises without uttering several quacks ; but on other
occasions it usually leaves its place in silence. While travelling to any
distance, the whistling sound of their wings may be heard a great way off,
more especially in the quiet of night. Their progress through the air I
have thought might be estimated at a mile and a half in the minute; and
I feel very confident that when at full speed and on a long journey, they
can fly at the rate of a hundred and twenty miles in the hour.
The Mallard is truly omnivorous, its food consisting of every thing
that can possibly satisfy the cravings of its extraordinary appetite. Nor
is it at all cleanly in this respect, for it will swallow any kind of offals,
and feed on all sorts of garbage, even putrid fish, as well as on snakes
and small quadrupeds. Nuts and fruits of all kinds are dainties to it,
and it soon fattens on rice, corn, or any other grain. My friend JOHN
BACHMAN, who usually raises a great number of Mallards every year, has
the young fed on chopped fish, on which they thrive uncommonly well.
So very greedy are these birds, that I have often observed a couple of
them tugging for a long time against each other for the skin of an eel,
which was already half swallowed by the one, while the other was engaged
at the opposite end. They are expert fly-catchers, and are in the
habit of patting with their feet the damp earth, to -force ground-worms
out of their burrows.
Besides man, the enemies of the Mallard are the White-headed Eagle,
the Snowy Owl, the Virginian Owl, the racoon, the lynx, and the snapping
turtle. Mallards are easily caught by snares, steel-traps baited with
corn, and figure-of-four traps. As we have no decoys in the United
States, I shall not trouble you with a new edition of the many accounts
you will find in ornithological books of that destructive method of procuring
Wild Ducks.
The eggs of this species measure two inches and a quarter in length,
one inch and five-eighths in breadth. The shell is smooth, and of a plain
light dingy green. They are smaller than those of the tame duck, and
rarely so numerous. As soon as incubation commences, the males asso-
MALLARD. 171
ciate together in flocks, until the young are able to migrate. This species
raises only one brood in the season, and I never found its nest with
eggs in autumn. The female covers her eggs before she leaves them to
go in search of food, and thus keeps them sufficiently warm until her return.
ANAS BOSCHAS, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 205—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 8 5 0 —
Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 3 8 3 .
MALLARD, ANAS BOSCHAS, Wils. Araer. Ornith. vol. viii. p. 1 1 2 . pi. 70. fig. 7 -—
Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 3 7 8 .
Adult Male. Plate CCXXI. Fig. 1. 1.
Bill about the length of the head, higher than broad at the base,
depressed and widened towards the end, rounded at the tip. Upper
mandible with the dorsal line sloping and a little concave, the ridge at
the base broad and flat, towards the end broadly convex, as are the sides,
the edges soft and rather obtuse, the marginal lamellae transverse, fifty on
each side; the unguis oval, curved, abrupt at the end. Nasal groove elliptical,
subbasal, filled by the soft membrane of the bill; nostrils subbasal,
placed near the ridge, longitudinal, elliptical, pervious. Lower
mandible slightly curved upwards, with the angle very long, narrow, and
rather pointed, the lamellae about sixty.
Head of moderate size, oblong, compressed ; neck rather long and
slender; body full, depressed. Feet short, stout, placed a little behind
the centre of the body; legs bare a little above the joint; tarsus short, a
little compressed, anteriorly with small scutella, laterally and behind with
reticulated angular scales. Hind toe extremely small, with a very narrow
membrane ; third toe longest, fourth a little shorter, but longer than
second ; all the toes covered above with numerous oblique scutella ; the
three anterior connected by reticulated membranes, the outer with a thick
margin, the inner with the margin extended into a slightly lobed web.
Claws small, arched, compressed, rather acute, that of the middle toe
much larger, with a dilated, thin, inner edge.
Plumage dense, soft, and elastic; of the head and neck short, blended,
and splendent; of the other parts in general broad and rounded. Wings
of moderate length, acute; primaries narrow and tapering, the second
longest, the first very little shorter; secondaries broad, curved inwards.