Chap. VIII. 



EXTERNAL DIFFERENCES. 



291 



theless this sub- variety is polygamous, like other domesticated 

 ducks and unlike the wild duck. These black Labrador ducks 

 breed true ; but a case is given by Dr. Turral of the French sub- 

 variety producing young with some white feathers on the head and 

 neck, and with an ochre-coloured patch on the breast. 



Breed 2. Hook-billed Duck. — This bird presents an extraordinary 

 appearance from the downward curvature of the beak. The head is 

 often tufted. The common colour is white, but some are coloured 

 like wild ducks. It is an ancient breed, having been noticed in 

 1676. 3 It shows its prolonged domestication by almost incessantly 

 laying eggs, like the fow T ls which are called everlasting layers. 4 



Breed 3. Call Duck. — Remarkable from its small size, and from 

 the extraordinary loquacity of the female. Beak short. These 

 birds are either white, or coloured like the wild duck. 



Breed 4. Pen gum Duck. — This is the most remarkable of all the 

 breeds, and seems to have originated in the Malayan archipelago. 

 It walks with its body extremely erect, and with its thin neck 

 stretched straight upwards. Beak rather short. Tail upturned, 

 including only 18 feathers. Femur and metatarsus elongated. 



Almost all naturalists admit that the several breeds are 

 descended from the common wild duck (Anas boschas) ; most 

 fanciers, on the other hand, take as usual a very different 

 view. 5 Unless Ave deny that domestication, prolonged during 

 centuries, can affect even such unimportant characters as 

 colour, size, and in a slight degree proportional dimensions 

 and mental disposition, there is no reason whatever to doubt 

 that the domestic duck is descended from the common wild 

 species, for the one differs from the other in no important 

 character. We have some historical evidence with respect to 

 the period and progress of the domestication of the duck. It 

 was unknown 6 to the ancient Egyptians, to the Jews of the 

 Old Testament, and to the Greeks of the Homeric period. 

 About eighteen centuries ago Columella 7 and Yarro speak of 



3 Willughby's 'Ornithology,' by 

 Ray, p. 381. This breed is also 

 figured by Albin, in 1734, in his 

 ' Nat. Hist, of Birds,' vol. ii. p. 86. 



4 F. Cuvier, in ' Annales du Museum,' 

 torn, ix. p. 128, says that moulting 

 and incubation alone stops these ducks 

 laying. Mr. B. P. Brent makes a 

 similar remark in the ' Poultry Chro- 

 nicle,' 1855, vol. iii. p. 512. 



5 Rev. E. S. Dixon, 'Ornamental 

 and Domestic Poultry' (1848), p. 

 117. Mr. B. P. Brent, in 'Poultry 

 Chronicle,' vol. iii., 1855, p. 512. 



6 Crawfurd on the ' Relation of 

 Domesticated Animals to Civilisation,' 

 read before the Brit. Assoc, at Oxford, 

 1860. 



7 Dureau de la Malle, in 'Annales 

 des Sciences Nat.,' torn. xvii. p. 164; 



