470 THE TAME DUCK. 



The best mode of rearing them depends very much upon the 

 situation in which they are hatched.* For the first month, 

 the confinement of their mother under a coop is better than 

 too much liberty. All kinds of sopped food, barley meal, and 

 water mixed thin, worms, &c., suit them. No people are more 

 successful than cottagers, who keep them, for the first period 

 of their existence, in pens two or three yards square, cramming 

 them night and morning with long dried pellets of flour and 

 water, or egg and flour, till they are judged old enough to be 

 turned out with their mother to forage on the common and the 

 village pond. Persons with extensive occupations, over which 

 the Ducks would stray and be lost, will find it better answer 

 their purpose to buy in their main supply of Ducks half-grown, 

 than to rear them, besides having the satisfaction of putting a 

 few shillings into the pockets of their poorer neighbours. A 

 few choice old favourites may still be retained for their services 

 as grub-destroyers, for the beauty of their plumage, and for 

 the pleasure of seeing them swim their minuets in the pond, 

 bowing politely to each other the bows to be returned be- 

 fore they take their afternoon's doze on the grass, with their 

 sleepy eyelids winking from below, and their bills stuck under 

 the feathers of their back, by way of a respirator. The healthy 

 heartiness of their appetite is amusing rather than disgusting. 

 A cunning old Duck, to whom I tossed a trap-killed mouse, 

 tried hard to get it down in the rough state, but finding that 

 impossible, she toddled off with it to the pond, where, after a 



ford excellent eating. Some of these half-breeds now and then wander 

 off, become quite wild, and have by some persons been considered as forming 

 a distinct species. They also breed, when tame, with the Black Duck 

 (Anas Fusca] and the Gadwal the latter connection giving rise to a 

 very handsome hybrid, retaining the yellow feet and barred plumage 

 of the one, and the green head of the other parent." 



* According to Pallas, in the Crimea, the tame Duck is reared with 

 difficulty. 



