THE TAME DUCK. 461 



descendants of the original wild cattle of North America : 

 there, on the contrary, the Bison is fast disappearing before the 

 advance of the agricultural settlers, just as the Aurochs, and 

 its contemporary, the Urus, have given way before a similar 

 progress in Europe. With regard to the great Urus, I believe 

 that this progress has caused its utter extirpation, and that our 

 knowledge of it is now limited to deductions from its fossil or 

 semi-fossil remains." OWEN'S British Fossil Mammals, p. 500. 

 In like manner, the Mallard, though not gone, is fast diminish- 

 ing as a permanent inhabitant of England : the tame Duck, so 

 much larger and heavier, if its descendant, can hardly be 

 called a degenerate one. The Mallard is very widely diffused 

 over the continental part both of the Old and the New World, 

 and therefore its supposed adaption to domestic life is as 

 likely to have occurred in Asia as in Europe. Its dislike to 

 salt water has made it less cosmopolitan among the islands. 

 Dampier, in his Voyages, repeatedly mentions that in the East 

 Indies " the tame Fowls are Ducks and Dunghill Fowls, both 

 in great plenty ;" he does not describe the Ducks, except as 

 " the same with ours." He was doubtless correct in believing 

 them to be the same ; although we know that the old travellers, 

 and many of the modern emigrants, are not very precise in 

 their zoology, and indeed might sometimes be excusably puz- 

 zled. For instance, when Captain Wallis, soon after he dis- 

 covered Otaheite, saw animals lying on the shore with their 

 fore- feet growing behind their heads, rising every now and 

 then, and running a little way in an erect posture, he might 

 naturally be moved with curiosity to inspect them more closely : 

 he afterwards found that they were dogs, with their fore-legs 

 tied behind them, brought down by the natives as a peace- 

 offering and a festival dish. 



I know of no instance in which any one has finally succeeded 

 in founding a permanent tame farm-yard race of Ducks, by 

 breeding from the Mallard, though the attempts have been 



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