BREEDING WILDFOWL, 533 



interested in this pursuit, and there seems good reason 

 to beheve that after a few years more of experiment, 

 a number of species of our wildfowl will be so far 

 domesticated that they can be depended on to breed 

 in confinement. At present mallards and black ducks 

 are practically the only live decoy ducks that are to be 

 had, but at various points in the country a few Canada 

 geese are being bred. 



The oldest and most successful Zoological Garden 

 in the United States is that at Philadelphia, which has 

 long been under the able superintendence of my friend, 

 Mr. Arthur Erwin Brown. The Zoological Society 

 has been remarkably successful in caring for the ani- 

 mals exhibited. An inquiry of Mr. Brown concerning 

 the breeding of wildfowl there, has drawn from him 

 the following note : 



"We have exhibited in our garden, 57 of the 196 

 species of swans, geese and ducks recognized by the 

 British Museum catalogue, but I confess that we have 

 not been successful in breeding them. A public gar- 

 den is not the best place in the world in which to breed 

 birds, for their nesting habits are usually shy, and 

 there are too many people around during the long incu- 

 bating period. Still, we ought to have done better, 

 and I do not fully understand why we have not ; except 

 that our ponds are a good deal exposed to visitors. 



"We have bred and raised many Egyptian geese, 

 mallard ducks, redheaded ducks and summer ducks. 

 The mute swan, the Canada goose, the Chinese goose 

 and others have nested but failed to hatch. Those 



