DUCKS 



135 



almost always to be seen in a collection of fancy waterfowl. The 

 Wood Duck is a native of North America, the Mandarin Duck 

 of Northern China. 



Place of ducks in domestication. It has been stated that if 

 there were no fowls, the duck would make the best substitute, 

 but as we have fowls in great variety, and as they suit us better 

 than ducks for nearly every purpose for which either might be 

 used, ducks are not often kept in place of fowls. Small flocks 

 of ducks are kept in addition to a flock of fowls, both on farms 

 and by town poultry keepers, either because the owner likes to 

 have them about or to add to the variety of poultry meat for 

 home consumption. 

 The flocks of ducks 

 so kept are of com- 

 paratively little eco- 

 nomic importance. 

 The ratio of ducks 

 to fowls is only 

 about one to fifty, 

 and the ratio of val- 

 ues of the products 

 of these two kinds 

 of poultry is probably nearer one to one hundred. But when 

 poultry keeping is made a special business, duck growing gives 

 the surest and the largest profits, because ducks can be grown 

 in large numbers more easily than any other domestic animal. 

 The largest permanently successful poultry farms in the world 

 are the great duck farms of the United States. 



To the fancier, ducks are decidedly less interesting than 

 fowls, not only because, as has already been stated, they present 

 fewer superficial characters upon which he can exercise his art, 

 but because they are, on the whole, less intelligent and less ca- 

 pable of developing confidence in one who handles them. Fowls 

 are much easier to handle in the way the fancier must often 



FIG. 129. Black and White Call Ducks, Brook View 

 Farm, Newbury, Massachusetts 



