TYPES AND BREEDS OF DUCKS 



447 



Laying-type ducks. The egg-type duck is a type developed in 

 Belgium, Holland, and northern France as a common, very hardy 

 duck ; it makes rapid growth, especially the first five or six weeks, 

 and is meaty, though small in comparison with those just described ; 

 it is an early layer and very prolific. On the continent these ducks 

 are of all colors. There seems little doubt that they have furnished 

 the foundation stock for the Blue Swedish, the Buff, and the Indian 

 Runner ducks. They still afford material for new varieties. 



The Indian Runner Duck. In 

 England and America the In- 

 dian Runner Duck was intro- 

 duced to the public as a native 

 of India, but .in view of the 

 positive testimony 1 on that point 

 it can hardly be doubted that it 

 is simply an improved color 

 type of the ducks from that part 

 of the Continent directly oppo- 

 site the south of England. The 

 peculiar erect carriage is like 

 that of the closely allied domes- 

 tic Penguin duck. Those who 

 attribute this character to a wild 

 ancestral race are evidently not 

 aware that the " wild penguin 

 duck " of early poultry writers 

 and some naturalists was a 



fiction. In England the continental stock was sometimes crossed 

 with common English ducks. American Standard weights for this 

 variety are drake, 4^- pounds ; duck, 4 pounds. The body is long 

 and narrow, the breast well developed. The standard color is fawn 

 (preferred) or gray and white, in a peculiar pattern, the dark color 

 occurring in patches on the crown and cheeks, and on the back, 

 breast, and fore part of the body like a jacket. As layers they surpass 



1 M. Louis Vander Snickt, of Belgium, in Chasse et Peche, in 1900, stated very 

 emphatically that the Indian Runner Duck was identical with the ducks of the 

 same type common in the Netherlands. Against such authority, stories of im- 

 portations from India (coupled with the information that in their alleged native 

 land the race is very rare) carry little weight. 



FIG. 475. Indian Runner drake and duck 

 (young). (Photograph from owner, Clay- 

 ton I. Bullard, White Pine, Tennessee) 



