ANCIENT ERROR DUCKS TO FATTEN. 109 



The old wife's plan of suffering a hen to hatch a 

 chicken or two with the ducklings, is unwise. The 

 hen for the sake of even a single individual of her 

 more natural progeny, will entirely neglect her foster 

 children the ducklings, at the critical time when 

 they most need her guidance and protection. Their 

 aquatic nature will be constantly urging them to the 

 water, where they will remain until exhausted, re- 

 turning to land like drowning rats, and probably 

 finding no mother to brood them. Thus great 

 numbers of ducklings are annually lost ; and half-a- 

 dozen of them may be lost for the sake of a chick 

 or two. I have heard of setting duck eggs under 

 a goose, which would cover a considerable number. 

 M. Tessiers memoir, read to the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris, states the period of incubation of 

 the hen upon duck eggs to be from twenty-Jive to 

 thirty-four days. I have neither known nor heard 

 of such a protracted sitting as thirty-four days. 



Ducks are FATTENED, either in confinement, with 

 plenty of food and water, or full as well, restricted to 

 a pond, with access to as much solid food as they 

 will eat ; which last method I prefer. They fatten 

 speedily, in this mode, mixing their hard meat with 

 such variety abroad, as is natural to them, more 

 particularly, if already in good case ; and there is no 

 check or impediment to thrift from pining, but every 

 mouthful tells and weighs its due weight. A dish of 

 mixed food, if preferred to whole corn, may remain 

 on the bank, or rather in a shed, for the ducks. I 

 must here mention a fact, which I have either ac- 

 tually verified, or supposed that I have verified. 



