486 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
derived from this species, and have been developed 
by man’s selection during a long series of years: he 
also seems to think that the wild birds when kept in 
a state of partial domestication vary in several 
respects after two or three generations; in proof of 
which he quotes a paper by Mr. Hewitt, in the 
‘Journal of Horticulture,’ to the following effect,— 
that after the third generation his birds lost their 
elegant carriage and began to acquire the gait of the 
common Duck; they increased in size in each 
generation and their legs became less fine; the white 
collar round the neck of the Mallard became broader 
and less regular, and some of the larger primary 
wing-feathers became more or less white. If this 
was always the case all our common and parti- 
coloured tame Ducks may easily be accounted for; 
but I have not found this to be so, as Wild Ducks 
have been kept in the pond here by my father and 
myself for certainly more than forty years, and no 
variation has taken place, nor has it ever been 
necessary to weed pied or parti-coloured birds: the 
only variation I have ever been able to observe is 
that the old Mallards lose the dark vinous colour on 
the breast, that part becoming the same as the rest 
of the under parts; but then I have shot a perfectly 
wild Mallard in exactly the same state, so that 
change is probably usual and only owing to age. 
I should say that these Ducks are not pinioned, and 
can hardly be said to be in confinement, as they fly 
