66 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



ON DOMESTICATED HYBRID DUCKS (ANAS BOSCHAS + OBSCURA). 



By E:L,I!^HA 8L.AOE:. 



The Mallard {Anas hoschas) and the Dusky Duck {A. obscnra) breed 

 regularly iu this neighborhood (Bristol County, Massachusetts). A 

 brood of ducklings of the latter, about a mouth old, was caught in the 

 summer of 187C. They bred iu 1877, one female laying eighty-four 

 eggs in eighty-five days before she wanted to set. During the year 

 1877 the drakes were destroyed by accident, and of the young v\ iiich 

 were raised all were ducks. In 1877 young wild Mallards {A. hoschas) 

 Mere caught; and, being unable to procure a dusky drake (1 wanted 

 very much to have a flock of A. ohscura), the Mallard drakes were mated 

 with the dusky ducks. I now have in my yard one of the dusky ducks 

 of 187G, aud one Mallard drake of 1877, and the rest of the birds are 

 lineal descendants of this pair. The hybrids show iu color a very nearly 

 equal blending of the two species iu each sex, and are perfectly fertile 

 'inter se. The birds mate regularly without quarreling, and in every 

 instance have remated each spring— the union lasting for life, probably. 

 The only restraint on the birds since 1877 has been an annual clipping 

 of the left wing; otherwise they have full liberty. When the ducks set, 

 every eg'^ hatches, and the i)erio(l of incubation does not vary thirty 

 minutes from twenty six days and four hours. The eggs set under hens 

 liatch on the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh day, according to circum- 

 stances. The ducks lay from sixty to ninety eggs each before wanting 

 to set, sometimes in one p'ace, but occasionally in different places; and 

 if not indulged in setting will lay again iu a fc-TT days. They have av- 

 eraged ninety-six eggs apiece for the spring and sunnner term, and 

 tweni y for the fall term of laying. Prior to 1880 the young ducks were 

 diiiicult to raise, probably from the changed condition of food aud en- 

 vironment, but since thoi they are as hardy as common ducks. Hats 

 f{Mus decumanns) are a scourge, in fact are very destructive, and have 

 destroyed ten to tw^'uty or more ducks, from a day to a week old, in a 

 jingle day aud night. If there was any possible way of protection from 

 this source of loss, 1 should as much expect to raise the same per cent, 

 of ducks as of chickens. 



The later-hatched birds have increased in size to some extent, Lave 

 somewhat thicker legs, and, from abundance of food and lack of flight 

 exercise, are slightly less graceful in movement than the earlier birds. 

 But thf^y are not yet demoralized by domestication nor denaturalized 

 by the tribute they are paying to the science of natural history. There 

 are no i)ondH nor streams on my premises, and their supply for drinking 

 and bathing is furnished two or three times daily in shallow dishes. 



I have one pair of birds mated and fertile, of which the male is three- 

 fourths Mallard and one-fourth Dusky Duck, the female three-fourths 

 Duskv Duck and one-fourth Mallard. 



