420 HISTORY OF 



CHAP. XII. 



OF THE DUCK, AND ITS VARIETIES. 



The Tame Duck is the most easily reared of all our domestic 

 animals. The very instincts of the young ones direct them to 

 their favourite element ; and though they are conducted by a hen, 

 yet they despise the admonitions of their leader. 



This serves as an incontestable proof that all birds have their 

 manners rather from nature than education. A falcon pursues 

 the partridge, not because it is taught by the old one, but be- 

 cause its appetites make their importunate call for animal food : 

 the cuckoo follows a very different trade from that which its 

 nurse endeavoured to teach it ; and, if we may credit Pliny, in 

 time destroys its instructor : animals of the duck kind also fol- 

 low their appetites, not their tutor, and come to all their various 

 perfections without any guide. All the arts possessed by man 

 are the result of accumulated experience ; all the arts of inferior 

 animals are self-taught, and scarcely one acquired by imitation. 



It is usual with the good women to lay duck-eggs under a hen, 

 because she hatches them better than the original parent would 

 have done. The duck seems to be a heedless inattentive mother; 

 she frequently leaves her eggs till they spoil, and even seems to 

 forget that she is intrusted with the charge : she is equally re- 

 gardless of them when excluded ; she leads them to the pond, 

 and thinks she has sufficiently provided for her offspring when 

 she has shown them the water. Whatever advantages may be 

 procured by coming nearer the house, or attending in the yard, 

 she declines them all ; and often lets the vermin, who haunt the 

 waters, destroy them, rather than bring them to take shelter 

 nearer home. The hen is a nurse of a very opposite character : 

 she broods with the utmost assiduity, and generally brings forth 

 a young one from every egg committed to her charge ; she does 

 not lead her younglings to the water indeed, but she watchfuUj 

 guards them when there, by standing at the brink. Should the 

 rat, or the weasel, attempt to seize them, the hen can give them 

 protection ; she leads them to the house when tired with pad- 

 dling, and rears up the supposititious brood, without ever sus- 

 pecting that they belong to another. 



