. Wild birds and their haunts (a book for students and sportsmen) . l always distinguish it as aspecies is the dark green curled feathers of the tail, show-ing a development or variation carried out in other partsor in other ways among the members of this or other verynearly allied genera. The young males in their first dress resemble thefemale. The males, after the season of incubation haspassed, lose the green head and distinguishing plumageof the upper parts, and become of a more sombre tint. A sight that is very rarely met with is the happy con-tentment exhibited by an animal and bird side
. Wild birds and their haunts (a book for students and sportsmen) . l always distinguish it as aspecies is the dark green curled feathers of the tail, show-ing a development or variation carried out in other partsor in other ways among the members of this or other verynearly allied genera. The young males in their first dress resemble thefemale. The males, after the season of incubation haspassed, lose the green head and distinguishing plumageof the upper parts, and become of a more sombre tint. A sight that is very rarely met with is the happy con-tentment exhibited by an animal and bird side by side inone nest. A gentleman who, a year or two ago, had a fancy forkeeping homing pigeons, all at once missed a pair fromhis loft, and after diligent search the culprits were foundat the rear of the dwelling-house, the male cooing itslove-song, whilst the female covered a couple of eggs, andin close proximity—in fact, only an in chor two distant—was the domestic cat, fondling, in a curled-up position,her progeny of five kittens Perfect harmony prevailed,. The Common Wild Duck or Majj,ard 181 and the young pigeons were duly hatched, and took tothemselves wings. Speaking of peculiar bed-fellows, I discovered a nestnear the Lough last year containing fourteen eggs, six ofwhich were that of the mallard duck, and the remainingeight were partridge eggs, presided over by the henmallard. It was, to the naturalists, a great disappoint-ment when the nest was eventually harried, for it wouldbe hazardous to speculate on the composition of thebrood. The question has often been asked, Does the mallardduck breed in captivity ? The best solution is centredin the fact that at the present time, what is termed thecommon duck (hen mallard) is sitting hard on ten my knowledge this bird is one of five that have beenwinged, or in some other way captured, and the littleflock, with wings clipped, go about similar to the ordinaryfarm-yard duck, and they are prolific in the matter ofegg-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectwaterbi, bookyear1922
