DUCK IN GENERAL AND IN PARTICULAR 17 



and the cooking of fur, feather, and fin. However 

 interesting the gaudy and beautiful sheldrake, the 

 sable scoter, the sober scaup, and the snowy-breasted 

 golden-eye may be to the naturalist, they are of 

 no interest as quarry to the self-respecting gun- 

 ner or as culinary subjects to the self-respecting 

 cook. 



That the duck has been popular with man as an 

 article of food since the very dawn of our race is attested 

 by the fact that wild-duck bones have been discovered 

 among the unconsidered trifles thrown to the ground 

 by troglodytes of the Stone Age. In Lepsius's ' Denk- 

 maler aus .^Egypten ' and elsewhere are to be seen 

 drawings of Egyptian monuments ranging in date 

 from 3000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. which represent duck 

 being taken by means of a net, and also being killed 

 by the boomerang the weapon whizzing through 

 the air in the direction of the birds. The duck is 

 common in the art of ancient Babylon. By the 

 Romans, the head and breast of a duck were con- 

 sidered choice delicacies. The Anglo-Saxon name 

 for duck was ' enid ' ; enid rake, the ruling duck, is 

 almost undoubtedly the origin of our word drake. 

 The word duck comes from the Danish ' dukke ' or 

 the Dutch ' duiken,' to dive or stoop Mallard is the 

 Norman male in anglicised garb. Duck, as a term 



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