460 THE TAME DUCK. 



issue, but for its being exercised at all, and was little likely to 

 be much practised by any European nation, in the interval be- 

 tween the fall of the Roman Empire and the present day, with 

 a creature that required a course of generations to reclaim it. 

 I am inclined, therefore, to consider our race of farm-yard 

 Ducks as an importation, through whatever channel, from the 

 East, and to point out the discovery of the passage of the Cape 

 of Good Hope (1493) as the approximate date. The early 

 voyagers speak of finding them in the East Indies exactly 

 similar to ours ; and the transmission of a few pairs would be 

 a much easier task than to subdue the shyness and wildness of 

 the Mallard, and induce an alteration in its bony structure. The 

 admirable reasoning of Professor Owen respecting our present 

 domestic Oxen, is, to my mind, perfectly applicable to the 

 Tame Duck. 



" My esteemed friend, Professor Bell, who has written the 

 ' History of Existing British Quadrupeds/ is disposed to believe 

 with Cuvier and most other naturalists, that our domestic 

 cattle are the degenerate descendants of the great Urus. But 

 it seems to me more probable that the herds of the newly- 

 conquered regions would be derived from the already domes- 

 ticated cattle of the Roman colonists, of those l boves nostri/ 

 for example, by comparison with which Caesar endeavoured to 

 convey to his countrymen an idea of the stupendous and 

 formidable Uri of the Hercynian forests. 



" The taming of such a species would be a much more diffi- 

 cult and less certain mode of supplying the exigencies of the 

 agricultursit, than the importation of the breeds of oxen 

 already domesticated and in use by the founders of the new 

 colonies. And, that the latter was the chief, if not sole 

 source of the herds of England, when its soil began to be cul- 

 tivated under the Roman sway, is strongly indicated by the 

 analogy of modern colonies. The domestic cattle, for example, 

 of the Anglo-Americans, have not been derived from tamed 



