DUCKS 169 



Spectator states that "the domestic duck, unlike his wild 

 brother, is a materialist, and where dinner is concerned 

 is decidedly greedy." The avidity with which the ducks 

 used to make for those pieces of dry bread certainly 

 bears out this statement. Every time a crust was thrown 

 on to the water there would be a wild scramble for it. 

 One individual, more fortunate than the others, would 

 secure it, and, sprinting away from his comrades, would 

 endeavour to swallow it whole. I have said that the 

 pieces of bread were cut up into portions of a size 

 supposed to be convenient for the mastication of a duck; 

 but, if the truth must be told, the cook invariably over- 

 estimated the size of the bird's gullet ; hence the frantic 

 muscular efforts to induce them to descend " red lane." 

 It is a miracle that not one of those ducks shared the 

 sad fate of Earl Godwin. 



Some of them must certainly have lost the epithelial 

 lining of the oesophagus in their desperate efforts to 

 dispose of those pieces of dry bread. An exceptionally 

 unmanageable morsel would be dropped again into the 

 water, and there would be a second scramble for it. By 

 this time, however, it would have become so much softened 

 as to be comparatively easy to swallow. How we used 

 to enjoy watching the efforts of those ducks to negotiate 

 the pieces of bread ! We were, of course, blissfully ig- 

 norant of the unnaturalnessof the process. Ourgoverness 

 used to read, in preference to natural history, fiction of 

 the class in which the fortunate scullery-maid always 

 marries a Duke. Thus it was that my sister and I knew 

 nothing of the wonderful structure of the duck's 

 beak. We were not aware that the mandibles were 



