It is the popular impression that all ducks breed in the far north and migrate from there south. One has only to shoot on the lakes of Mexico to learn how erroneous this impression is, for one will meet varieties quite common there that rarely if ever reach the southern boundaries of the United States.
The masked duck (Nomonyx dominicus) is a purely southern species reaching Mexico only in its breeding season. The three species of the Mexican tree duck, quite common in that country, come but little into the United States. One of these, the black-bellied tree duck (Dendrosygna autumnalis) migrates to some little extent into Texas and to less extent into New Mexico and Arizona. The fulvous tree duck (Dendrosygna fulva) extends its migrations still farther north, breeding to considerable extent in Arizona and southern California, but rarely seen as far north as the center of the state. The other species of the genus (Dendrosygna elegans), for which I know no English name, is even rare as far south as southern Jalisco. The cinnamon teal is a southern duck, breeding in Arizona, Texas and southern California but so rarely seen north of San Francisco that a gentleman who had killed a straggler near Marysville, when showing it to me, said that he couldn't find a man in the town who could tell him what it was. Yet the cinnamon teal is very common in Mexico and Arizona and quite plentiful in southern California in the spring, before the flocks break up and the birds seek their nesting places.
Northern bred ducks and purely northern species visit us in great numbers during the winter months, and to these must be added the vast number of these birds that breed in the mountains throughout our hunting grounds.
The ornithologist divides the ducks into two subfamilies; the fresh-water ducks forming the subfamily, Anatinæ, and the salt-water ducks the subfamily, Fullgilinæ. These two families can easily be distinguished by their feet. If a salt-water duck, the hind toe will be found to have a small web or flap on the under side, but if the bird belongs to the fresh-water group, the toe will be as clean as any land bird.
| MALLARD (Anas boschas) |
THE MALLARD
(Anas boschas)