106 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



ducks are annually procured for the waters of our 

 English parks. " Ornamental water fowl, con- 

 sisting of black and white swans; Egyptian, 

 Canada, China, bernicle, brent, and laughing 

 geese, shieldrakes, pintail, wigeon, summer and 

 winter teal ; gadwall, Labrador, shovellers, golden 

 eyed and dun divers ; Carolina ducks, &c. &c., 

 domesticated and pinioned." Some of our private 

 museums, too, are loaded with continental speci- 

 mens of anatidce, which are fondly imagined by 

 their possessors to be ' British killed birds/ 

 because they were purchased in London * in the 

 flesh : ' but their right to that title is frequently 

 apocryphal. It is well known that the metro- 

 politan markets are regularly supplied with water 

 fowl from France and Holland ; and the evil is 

 likely to increase every day, under the in- 

 fluence of railways and accelerated steam com- 

 munication, There can be little doubt that ere 

 long the London gourmand may receive the can- 

 vas-backed duck from America, and probably in 

 better condition than many of the capercaillie 

 and ptarmigan that now find their way to the 

 poulterers from the distant forests of Norway and 

 Sweden. 



The ducks best known to the sportsman and 

 the shooter on the coast are, The common wild 

 duck (anas boschas), the teal (anas crecca), the 



