545 
reared three hybrid birds, continued as follows :—* In the 
gardens this year we have also bred two other broods of hybrid ~ 
ducks; one of these was the produce of a male dusky duck, 
Anas obscura, and a cross-bred female between the dusky duck 
and the wild duck. The other was the issue, as we believe, of 
parents, themselves both cross-bred, and both originating from 
hybridism between the tufted duck, Fulingula cristata, and the 
white-eyed Nyroca leucophthalma. But as there is a male, pure 
bred white-eyed duck in the same pond, we cannot be quite 
certain on the point.” 
Mr Bartlett, at a meeting of the Zoological Society (February 
12th, 1861) produced living specimens of the following hybrids 
bred in the gardens, one pair being the offspring of the summer 
duck, Aix sponsa, and pochard, Feligula ferina ; and the other 
of the summer duck and the castanaceous duck, F. nyroca. Mr 
Yarrell, in 1832, exhibited before the same society the 
apparently healthy generative organs of a male hybrid raised in 
the gardens between a Muscovy drake and a common duck: its 
vocal organs more resembled Anas boschas than A. moschata. 
On December 13th, 1831, Mr Fiennes showed at a meeting of 
the same society a hybrid duck, bred between a male pintail and 
a common duck. It was one of a brood of six, several of which 
were subsequently confined with the pintail drake, from which 
they had sprung, and reared some young. A specimen of a 
duck of this second brood.was likewise shown (P.Z.S., 1831, 
p. 158). 
In the United States of America, a brood of young duck- 
lings of the dusky duck, Anas obscura, were captured in Bristol 
County, Massachusetts, in 1876; they bred in 1877, but by an 
accident the drakes were destroyed this season. In 1877 young 
wild mallards, A. boschas, were caught; these mated with the 
dusky ducks, and in the Proceedings of the United States National 
Museum for 1884, Mr Slade states: ‘I have now in my yard 
one of the dusky ducks of 1876, and one mallard of 1877, and 
the rest of the birds are lineal descendants of this pair. Every 
egg hatches. One pair of birds, mated and fertile, has the 
drake three-fourths mallard and one-fourth dusky duck, while 
