CHAPTER VI 



DUCKS 



Ducks rank next to fowls in economic importance. If there 

 were no fowls, domestic ducks would probably be as numerous 

 as fowls are now, for it is much easier to produce eggs and meat 

 from ducks than from any known species of gallinaceous bird 

 except the fowl. To most people who are not accustomed to 

 eating them, neither the flesh nor the eggs of ducks seem quite 

 as palatable as the flesh and eggs of fowls. On the other hand, 

 people accustomed to eating fat ducks and the eggs of ducks, 

 which contain a much higher percentage of fat than hens' eggs, 

 often consider the flesh and eggs of fowls rather insipid. The 

 feathers of ducks are more valuable commercially than those 

 of fowls but are not correspondingly profitable to the producer, 

 because ducks are much harder to pluck. 



Description. Common ducks are about the same size as 

 common fowls. The improved breeds vary greatly in size but 

 do not present such extremes of size and diversity of form 

 as are found in the races of fowls. As the duck in a state of 

 nature lives much upon the water, its form is at nearly every 

 point different from the typical form of the fowl. The duck is 

 usually described as boat-shaped, but, while this is a good de- 

 scription, it would be more correct to say that a boat is duck- 

 shaped. The duck was the natural model for the first builders 

 of boats. 



The bills of ducks are large, rather flat, and broad at the tip. 

 The species to which most of our domestic ducks belong has 

 no head ornaments corresponding to the comb and wattles of 

 the fowl. There is one variety of this species which has a 



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