232 TURKEYS, ORNAMENTAL POULTRY, AND WATEU-FOWL. 



" The weight of each bird in a show-pen ought to be about 

 nine pounds, but this is not very often attained. 



" Immense numbers of ducks are bred around Aylesbury. 

 It is not at all unusual to see around one small cottage 2,000 

 ducklings, and it has been computed that upwards of 20,000 

 per annum is returned to the town and neighbourhood in 

 exchange, whilst the railway not uncommonly carries a ton 

 weight of the birds up to the London market in a single night. 



" The Aylesbury Duck often begins to lay before Christ- 

 mas. Sitting hens are then procured ; and immediately after 

 hatching the ducklings are taken away from the hen and put, 

 fifty or a hundred together, in a close warm place, with one 

 hen tied by the leg to teach them to peck, and also to huckle 

 them. They should be given stimulating food ; that is, meal 

 well mixed with boiled meat and greaves ; they are thus made 

 fat in six or seven weeks, and, if sent to market in March or 

 April, realise from 12s. to 18s. per couple. 



" With regard to my own breeding-stock, the selection 

 gives me no trouble. All the large breeders know that I will 

 give a guinea at any time for a very fine and well-developed 

 bird, and I thus keep my strain large, and am constantly 

 infusing new blood. 1 



" Many persons cannot imagine how the specimens of the 

 breed reared here acquire such faultless flesh-coloured bills. 

 The cause is local, as might be supposed. The beautiful prize 

 tint is obtained by giving the ducks in their troughs of water 

 a peculiar kind of white gravel found only in the neighbour- 

 hood of Aylesbury, in appearance resembling pumice-stone. 

 In this gravel they constantly shovel their bills, and this keeps 

 them white. Also, birds intended for exhibition are seldom 

 allowed out in the sun, as it tans the bills sadly. 



" In selecting breeding-stock, drakes should be chosen with 

 very long bills, like a woodcock's, and ducks with broad backs 

 and large solid bodies." 



