The young bird lacks the chestnut band, the head and neck are dull brownish black, the scapulars greyish brown, and in its first autumn it assumes a plumage similar to the adult female, but duller. Length 25 in.; wing 13 in. Both sexes assume in July a much duller plumage, somewhat resembling that of the young in their first winter.
THE RUDDY SHELD-DUCK Tadorna casarca (Linnæus)
The Ruddy Sheld-Duck is a South-eastern European species, breeding on the shores of the Levant and throughout Northern Africa, but it is rare on the north shores of the Mediterranean west of the Adriatic. It has several times been noted as a straggler to England, and in 1892 many flocks appeared in different parts of the country.
[Illustration: SHELD-DUCK _Tadorna cornuta_]
The general colour is a deep orange brown, the head being rather lighter. The male has a narrow black collar during the nesting season. The female is much paler on the head, the forehead, lores, and a ring round the eye being nearly white. Length 25 in.; wing 14·5 in.
THE MALLARD OR WILD DUCK Anas boschas, Linnæus
This is at once our commonest and most beautiful Duck. Owing to drainage of fen-lands and higher cultivation it is, perhaps, not so abundant as formerly, yet there are few marshes or low-lying lands of any extent in our islands, which do not afford a home to a few pairs of this species.
It feeds chiefly by night on worms, aquatic insects, water weeds, and grain, and prefers ditches overgrown with weeds or shallow ponds to open stretches of deep water. Early in March it chooses a nesting site, usually on the ground and at no great distance from water, but exceptionally it has been known to nest in trees, faggots, stacks, and other elevated places. No nest is formed, but a cup-shaped hollow is scraped out, which is warmly lined with down after incubation commences. The eggs, usually ten to twelve in number, are pale greenish yellow, and are always carefully covered up by the Duck on leaving the nest. They hatch after twenty-seven days' incubation, and the young are then taken to the nearest water, on or near which they remain for about two months till they can fly. If, however, they are much disturbed they will be led away by their mother to a neighbouring piece of water, often at some considerable distance.