Correspondence.



71



The lower part of the breast is brilliant fiery-red merging into yellowish

buff on the abdomen.


Hab. : N.W. Ecuador (Lita, Carondelet, etc.)


Perhaps "Mr. Goodfellow knows it.


COLOUR IN HYBRID DUCKS.


I lay no claim to being scientific in the sense in which, I take it, our

Editor meant in a recent number of the magazine, but I am writing this in

the hope that somebody who is scientific may be able to expound some theory on

colouration in hybrid ducks, which I frankly admit defeats me.


If one crosses a pintail drake with a wild duck, the result is, what I think

most people would expect, i.e. a bird just about half-and-half (lam speaking only

of male hybrids) the white of the pintail’s breast crossed with the chocolate of

the mallard’s produces a pale pinkish brown, in most cases white at the bottom

of the neck running up into a point at each side of the neck as in the pure

pintail; the rest of the plumage is half mallard and half pintail, to such an

extent that anyone with any knowledge of ducks could tell at a glance how the

bird was bred.


Thus in the hybrid pintail X wild duck we get chocolate crossed with

white producing pale pinkish brown.


Now if we cross a rosybill drake with a wild duck, which colour should we

expect to get on the breast of the male hybrid? A rosybill’s breast is jet black

and a mallard’s chocolate, so surely we might expect some colour darker than

chocolate, yet the colour of the hybrid’s breast is a very pale brown, several

shades paler than a mallard’s, fading down to nearly white towards the belly.

Thus black crossed with chocolate produces pale brown. This is the same in the

hybrids between common pochards and wild ducks.


Now take the hybrids produced by crossing a common shelldrake with a

ruddy shellduck. The hybrid’s head and neck is what one might expect, black

with a buff patch on each ear ; but take the upper part of the breast, which, as

everyone knows, is pure white in the common shelldrake and chestnut in the

ruddy shelldrake, so judging by the result of white crossed with chocolate (as in

the pintail hybrid) we might expect a pale buff running into pure white at the

base of the neck. Yet the colour we do get is a fine rich chestnut, considerably

darker than in the pure ruddy shelldrake and with the tiniest white ring round

the base of the neck, and even this is absent in about 50 per cent. Then on the

lower breast and sides, where the chestnut ring goes round the common shell-

drake’s body and is also chestnut in the ruddy sheldrake, the colour of the

hybrid is paler than in the upper breast ! The flanks (again white crossed with

chestnut) are palish brown with tiny black pencillings on the outer edges of the

feathers ; also in the hybrids there is no sign of the black shoulders, so con¬

spicuous in the male parent, the upper parts of the body being practically the

same uniform chestnut as in the female parent, though in female hybrids the

feathers on the back are tipped with black pencillings. Taking the under tail



