THE WILD DUCK OR MALLARD.
The Wild Duck or Mallard.
(Anas bóscas.)
The nest of the Mallard is placed in the sedges of the marsh, in cornfields, and—strangely enough—on willow stumps and in large holes in trees. It is carelessly put together, but is lined with soft downy feathers. It lays ten or twelve strong yellowish-white eggs.
The way in which a mother Duck, who has nested in a tree hole rather high up, brings her young family to the water is remarkable. As soon as they are dry after hatching, she carries them one by one in her bill down to the water’s edge. Each duckling as it is set down remains motionless as a stone on the ground, until the mother has brought the last baby to join the others, then the whole family begins to cackle and pipe, the young ones follow their mother into the water, swimming at once, and their duck life begins its ordinary course.
Their usual diet consists of water plants, duckweed, sundew, the green parts of the water-nut and the seeds of water grasses. They let the water flow, filtering through their beaks as beseems a well brought up duck, and in this way allow many little water creatures, fish spawn and such like, to enter their crops. But they can also do mischief. At harvest time the duck visits the cut corn lying on the ground and the sheaves, picks out the corn and treads down the ears. Therefore—and also because it is so good for the table—it is worthy of a well-aimed shot.
It is still very common in Hungary.
“Mallards manifest bird chivalry and courtesy to perfection—the drakes industriously finding mussels for their sober-coloured mates, not because these are not able to find for themselves but because the males consider it their place to do so. Stretching out their necks and ruffling all their feathers they softly call when they have a lucky find; up rushes the duck, nips fast hold of the gaper and swings it from side to side as a terrier shakes a rat: after wrenching it from the shell she washes it in the water of the runnel and swallows it.
It is a matter of serious regret to many a sportsman and one entailing loss to the longshore shooter that the numbers of our common Wild Ducks or Mallards are each year becoming less. But for those bred in the Arctic regions—those the North Kent marshman calls “foreign flighters,” we should be in a bad way as to the Wild Duck.
The latter arrive in great numbers from the Continent during the colder months. Drainage of the fens, and improvements in agriculture have, of course, lessened the numbers of those that breed with us; but flapper-shooting on the flats and the want of protection are decimating them largely on the Essex and North Kent marsh-lands. All good authorities on the subject agree that there ought to be a close time for our Wild Duck up to the 1st of September, whereas in Essex protection extends only to August 16th, and in Kent only till the 13th of that month. In shooting the Flappers, or young birds, many an old Drake gets killed; having lost his quills he is incapable of flight. He does not put on his full new dress until the middle of October. Flappers are easily killed as they reach full growth before their wings are fledged; so that it is not really fair sport, which should give a free field. As old Peter Hawker, the father of Wild Duck Shooting said, flapper-shooting is often more like hunting water-rats than shooting birds. They haunt deep and retired parts of a brook, or stream, in families. Flappers are only called Wild Ducks when they take wing.