NOTES 

 NOTE ON WILDNESS IN DUCKLINGS 



JOHN C. PHILLIPS 



Bussey Institution, Harvard University 



The writer was much interested this year in the behavior, as 

 regards wildness, of certain young ducks hatched under hens. 

 The common, so called "English Mallard" of the English game 

 preserves has long been kept by man and acts at all ages like 

 an extremely tame bird. It is a pure pred Mallard, but how 

 long it has been under domestication is not known. It flies 

 readily. 



Not until this year, however, were my pure wild Mallards, 

 Anas boschas, induced to lay. The eggs were taken, three nest- 

 fuls, placed under hens and hatched. They hatched well, and 

 from the first the young ducklings were extremely tame and 

 easy to manage. They took ordinary feed off the ground, and 

 grew well in competition with other larger ducks in the same 

 enclosure, though at all ages they preferred sunken or floated 

 food. They differed from common ducks as regards their be- 

 havior in being much quicker on their feet and livelier in action. 

 From the first they showed great skill and interest in catching 

 insects. 



At the same time there were hatched a large number of back 

 crosses between common tame Mallards and pure wild Black 

 Ducks, Anas tristis. One of these crosses produced young 

 which were three-fourths Anas tristis, while in two other crosses 

 the young were only one-fourth A. tristis. The three-fourth 

 A. tristis ducklings, although raised under the same conditions 

 as the wild Mallards showed frcm the first extraordinary wild- 

 ness. They were extremely hard to manage, did badly under 

 ordinary methods of hand rearing, and required much special 

 care and special feeding. Even then the mortality among them 

 was enormous, while among the wild Mallards it was practically 

 zero. Besides their extreme wildness, the most noticeable trait 

 of the three-fourth A. tristis ducklings was their marked aver- 

 sion to picking food off the ground. Food had to be floated on 



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