. The Game breeder . than half of the food of water ducks are almost equally fond ofthe few mallards examined, and at Cam- it. Geese eat the stems and leaves of the THE GAME BREEDER 13 plant, as also do ducks when they arehard pressed. Testimony as to the valueof the plant has come from Wisconsinand Oregon, and the Biological Surveyhas found seeds of wild millet in duckstomachs from Massachusetts, SouthDakota, Missouri, and Nebraska in addi-tion to the States above mentioned. The plant is popularly known through-out lower Louisiana as wild rice and isgiven about the same rank as a duck spiny a
. The Game breeder . than half of the food of water ducks are almost equally fond ofthe few mallards examined, and at Cam- it. Geese eat the stems and leaves of the THE GAME BREEDER 13 plant, as also do ducks when they arehard pressed. Testimony as to the valueof the plant has come from Wisconsinand Oregon, and the Biological Surveyhas found seeds of wild millet in duckstomachs from Massachusetts, SouthDakota, Missouri, and Nebraska in addi-tion to the States above mentioned. The plant is popularly known through-out lower Louisiana as wild rice and isgiven about the same rank as a duck spiny appearance (fig. 11). The innerscale of the- chaff terminates in a spinewhich is always stouter and longer thanthe others. This spine or awn may bevery short or it may be from 2 to 3inches long or more, surpassing by manytimes the length of the seed. One of theother scales also may bear a long spine atthe tip. The prickly character of theseed coverings is referred to in the namecockspur grass. The longer awns in par-. Fig. 12 —Fruiting heads of wild millet. (One-third natural size.) food as the plant (Zizania aquatica)known by that name in the north. Otherpopular names referring to the prefer-ence of wild fowl for the plant are goosegrass and blue duck food. DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. Wild millet is a coarse, leafy grasswhich grows from 1 to 6 feet in stems and foilage are not especiallyremarkable, but the fruiting head hascharacters which enable us easily to dis-tinguish this from other species of nativegrasses The chaff or outer seed cover-ings is set with rows of short, stiff, out-standing spines. These project beyondthe general outline of the body of theseeds and give them an easily visible ticular and sometimes the whole fruitingheads may have a deep purplish , no doubt, suggested the name blueduck food used in the Mississippi long-awned form lias been given thevarietal name longearistata but for pres-ent purposes we may consider all thetypes ill
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