One day late in May a number of years ago, W. T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoölogical Park, when collecting in Montana, found a little water hole, hardly ten feet in diameter, hiding in the sunken head of a dry coulée. All around in every direction for miles and miles the sagebrush, shimmering in the heat of the early summer, stretched in a billowy sea. But as he dismounted for a drink, up from her nest in the sagebrush by the side of the pool rose a mallard duck. “And,” says Mr. Hornaday, “as I gazed in astonishment at this nest and its contents beside an insignificant bit of water in a landscape that was certainly not made for ducks, I understood how it is that this bird has been able to spread itself all around the northern two-thirds of the globe.” The mallard is the best known and most generally distributed of wild ducks. It is found throughout the entire northern hemisphere. It is the most cosmopolitan of all wild fowl, and the original stock of our numerous varieties of tame ducks. The mallard is wary and wise. It is one of the largest ducks; it is one of the handsomest; it is very strong on the wing, and highly intelligent. The drake, with his shining green head, mahogany breast, violet striped wings and pearl-gray body, is one of our most striking and beautiful ducks. The female is a very different looking bird. She is of a modest brown color, streaked with black. Mallards are hardy birds. While the center of winter abundance is in the southern middle districts, still a number remain in the New York state marshes until they freeze over, frequently into December, so that they are found in company with canvasbacks, redheads, and the big bluebills. In England the mallard is known as the stock duck, because it was the original stock from which the domestic duck has descended. It pairs very early in the year. The ceremonies of courtship require some little time; but soon after these are performed the respective couples separate in search of suitable nesting places. A little dry grass is usually collected, and on it the eggs, from nine to eleven in number, are laid. As soon as incubation begins the mother starts in to divest herself of the down that grows thickly beneath her breast feathers, and adds it to the nest furniture; so that the eggs are deeply imbedded in this heat-retaining substance--a portion of which she is always careful to pull, as a coverlet, over her treasures when she leaves them for food. However, the mother rarely leaves the nest during the hatching period. When all the eggs are hatched the brood is led carefully to water, and throughout the summer the mother watches over the chicks until they are full grown and feathered.