ict on fattening dutks. Now: 14. 
fruitful; from an hundred eggs there are scarcely twenty 
ducklings produced ; sometimes none, It is even necefsa- 
ry to have recourse to cherifhing means, and to give to the 
drake and the duck plenty of nourifhment, and especially 
_a great deal of bread. That fermented aliment agrees with 
_ them better than corn. and other grain, and excites them 
to production ; the female must also get egg fhells, snails, 
or other calcareous matter, otherwise their eggs would be 
without (hells, and covered only by a pellicle. As fast as 
-the ducks lay, their eggs are gathered and given te 
‘hens to/hatch. When.they are hatched, they follow for 
some time their foster mother; but they soon quit her te 
goin a flock to muddle along the rivulets, and seek their , 
food; they return at night to their house, where they get 
leaves of lettuce, lucerne, cabbage, and other herbs. Their 
plumage is of a'deep green, and their size between that 
of the large Indian *, and the common duck. They have 
not those red exerescences which distinguifh the Indian 
duck, but they have their deep green plumage. If care was 
snot taken to cut the pinion of the wings they would fly off 
and leave the country. In the month of November they ' 
are fed with millet, and other grain. I have substituted 
to it, with succefs, potatoes boiled with cabbage. 
When they are pretty fat, they are fhut up eight by 
eight in a dark place. Every morning and evening a ser- 
vant puts their wings acrofs, and placing them between bis 
knees, opens their bill with his left hand, and with his 
right fills the craw with boiled maize; they sometimes 
die suffocated, but they are not a bit the worse for it, pro- 
vided care is taken to bleed them directly. These unfortu- 
nate animals pafs there fifteen days in a state of opprefsion 
-and suffocation, which makes their liver grow large, and 
keeps them always panting, and almost without breathing, 
* Can any of my readers inform what kind of duck is’meant by this 
mame? Edit. 
