202 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



key, is necessary ; for, actuated by a strange jealousy, tlie male will 

 break all the eggs if he discovers them ; and this feeling actuates our 

 domestic birds, insomuch that the female, during incubation, must be 

 placed in such security as to prevent the access of the male to the nest. 

 Eggs, grayish white ; period of incubation, from twenty-seven to thirty 

 days. 



MUSK OE BEAZILIAN DtTCKS. 



THE DOMESTIC DUCK.— Ducks cannot be kept to advantage unless 

 they can have access to water. This need not be in large quantities. 

 A tub, holding a few gallons, set in the ground, and daily renewed, an- 

 swering for a large flock. They are gross feeders, and excellent "snap- 

 pers up of unconsidered trifles." Nothing comes amiss to them : green 

 boiled vegetables, the waste of the kitchen, meal of all sorts made into 

 paste, grains, bread, animal substances, worms, slugs and snails, insects 

 and their larvse, are all accepted with eagerness. Their appetite is not 

 fastidious; in fact, to parody the line of a song, "they eat all that is 

 luscious, eat all that they can," and soein determined to reward their 

 owner by keeping themselves in first-rate condition, if the chance of so 

 doing is afforded them. They never need cramming — give them enough 

 and they will cram themselves; yet they have their requirements and 

 ways of their own, wdiich must be conceded. Confinement wmII not do 

 for them : a paddock, an orcluj'd, a green lane, and a pond ; a farm- 

 yard, with barns and water ; a common, smooth and level, with a sheet 

 of water, abounding in the season with tadpoles and the larvre of aqua- 

 tic insects, — these are the localities in which the duck delights, and in 

 such they are kept at little expense. They traverse the green sward in 



