POULTRY 17 



America were keeping and breeding tame was 

 what we call here the Muscovy duck. This, 

 like the turkey, has got a wrong name, for 

 Muscovy was the name given to Russia in 

 those days, and I do not know how it got 

 fixed on to this American duck. Muscovy 

 ducks have very different habits in some ways 

 from our ducks ; when they are wild they 

 roost in trees like fowls, and you can even see 

 the tame ones fly up on to walls or roofs. 

 The wild ones also lay their eggs in holes in 

 trees. You can always know a Muscovy 

 duck because it has a bare red skin round its 

 eyes ; people only keep them as curiosities 

 here, but over a large part of the world in hot 

 climates, in Africa as well as in their proper 

 home in the warm parts of America, they are 

 the ordinary tame ducks that are kept. The 

 wild ones are black with white patches on the 

 wings, and are bigger than our wild ducks, 

 especially the drakes. 



So we see that to trace back our poultry to 

 the wild state takes us into quite a lot of geo- 

 graphy and ancient history ; and the story as to 

 how some of them came to be so different from 

 their wild relations is also a very interesting 



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