On many of the inland streams and pools of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Far West in general, including all the bays, shallows and tributaries of the Great Lakes, as well as all the lovely smaller lakes of New York, especially where the wild-rice, or wild-oat, zizania aquatica, is plentiful, they are found in very great numbers, especially in the spring and summer time, nor are they unfrequently killed on the snipe-grounds of New Jersey, around Chatham, Pine-brook, and the Parcippany meadows on the beautiful Passaic, and on the yet more extensive grounds on the Seneca and Cayuga outlets, in the vicinity of Montezuma Salina, and the salt regions of New York.
In the shallows of the lake and river St. Clair, above Detroit, on the rivière aux Canards, and the marshes of Chatham in Canada East, all along the shores of Lake Erie on the Canadian side, especially about Long Point, and in the Grand River, they literally swarm; while in all the rivers, and shallow rice-lakes on the northern shores of Lake Huron, which are the breeding-places of their countless tribes, they are found, from the breaking up of the ice to the shutting up of the bays and coves in which they feed, in numbers absolutely numberless.
The Mallard is generally believed to be the parent and progenitor of the domestic duck, which, although far superior in beauty of plumage and grace of form and deportment, it very closely resembles; yet when or where it was domesticated, is a question entirely dark and never to be settled. It is certain that the domestic duck was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, so late as to the Christian era, although the paintings in the Egyptian tombs demonstrate beyond a peradventure that it was familiar to that wonderful people from a very remote period; as it is also known to have been among the Chinese, who rear and cultivate them to a very great extent. Indeed, it is I think in the highest degree probable that the Duck, in its domestic state, is an importation into Europe from the East, where, as I believe in every quarter of the globe, the Mallard is a common and indigenous native of the fresh waters.
The Mallard, or wild drake, commonly known in the Eastern States as the Green-head, westward as the Gray Duck, and in Alabama as the English Duck, weighs from thirty-six to forty ounces, and measures twenty-three inches in length, by thirty-five in breadth.
The bill is of a yellowish-green color, not very flat, about an inch broad, and two and a half long from the corners of the mouth to the tip of the nail; the head and upper half of the neck are of a deep, glossy, changeable green, terminated in the middle of the neck by a white collar, with which it is nearly encircled; the lower parts of the neck, breast and shoulders are of a deep, vinous chestnut; the covering scapular feathers are of a kind of silvery-white, those underneath rufous, and both are prettily crossed with small, waved threads of brown. Wing coverts ash, quills brown, and between these intervenes the speculum, or beauty spot, common in the duck tribe, which crosses the wing in a transverse, oblique direction. It is of a rich, glossy purple, with violet or green reflections, and bordered by a double streak of sooty black and pure white. The belly is of a pale gray, delicately crossed and penciled with numberless narrow, waved, dusky lines, which on the sides and long feathers that cover the thighs are more strongly and distinctly marked. The upper and under tail coverts, lower part of the back and rump, are black, the latter glossed with green; the four middle tail feathers are also black, with purple reflections, and, like those of the domestic duck, are stiffly curled upward. The rest are sharp-pointed, and fade off to the exterior edges from brown to dull white. Iris of the eye bright yellow, feet, legs and webs reddish-orange, claws black.
The female, and young male until after the first moult, is very different in plumage from the adult drake, partaking none of his beauties, with the exception of the spot on the wings. All the other parts are plain brown, marked with black, the centre of every feather being dark and fading to the edges. She makes her nest, lays her eggs—from ten to sixteen in number, of a greenish white—generally in the most sequestered mosses or bogs, far from the haunts of man, and hidden from his sight among reeds and rushes. To her young, helpless, unfledged family, and they are nearly three months before they can fly, she is a fond, attentive and watchful parent, carrying or leading them from one pool to another, as her fears or inclinations direct her, and she is known to use the same wily stratagems, in order to mislead the sportsman and his dog, as those resorted to by the ruffed grouse, the quail and the woodcock, feigning lameness, and fluttering, as if helplessly wounded, along the surface of the water, until she has lured the enemy afar from her skulking and terrified progeny.
The Mallard is rarely or never shot to decoys, or stools as they are termed, since these are but little used except on the coast, where this duck is, as I have previously observed, of rare occurrence, although it is occasionally found in company with the Dusky Duck, anas obscura, better known to gunners as the Black Duck.
“Like the Dusky Duck,” says Mr. Giraud, in his very clever and agreeable manual on the birds of Long Island, “when pursued by the sportsman, it becomes shy and feeds at night, dozing away the day out of gun-shot from the shore.
“Early in the month of July, 1837, while hunting over the meadows for smaller game, I came upon a pair of Mallard Ducks, moving slowly down the celebrated ‘Brick-house creek.’ The thought occurred to me that they were a pair of tame ducks that had become tired of the monotony of domestic life, and determined on pushing their fortunes in the broad bay. As I advanced they took wing, which undeceived me, and I brought them down. They proved to be an adult male and female. From this circumstance I was led to suppose that they had bred in the neighborhood. I made a diligent search, and offered a sufficient bounty to induce others to search with me—but neither nest nor young could be found. Probably when migrating, they were shot at and so badly wounded as to be unable to perform their fatiguing journey, perhaps miles apart, and perchance only found companions in each other a short time before I shot them.”
When the young birds are about three-fourths grown, and not as yet fully fledged or able to fly strongly, at which age they are termed flappers, they afford excellent sport over water-spaniels, when they are abundant in large reed beds along the brink of ponds and rivers. When full grown, moreover, when they frequent parts of the country where the streams are narrow and winding, great sport can be had with them at times, by walking about twenty yards wide of the brink and as many in advance of an attendant, who should follow all the windings of the water and flush the birds, which springing wild of him will so be brought within easy range of the gun.