150 THE COMMON DUCK. 



and oats, with pure water, and at the end 

 of two months or six weeks from the shell, 

 they are sweet-flavoured, fat, and fit for the 

 table. In consequence of their great vo- 

 racity, it is not profitable to keep them much 

 Longer. In the autumn and winter, the old 

 ones maybe permitted to take to the water. 

 Cobbet, in his " Cottage Economy," a book 

 which should find a place on the bookshelf 

 of every farmer, observes, that ducks will 

 feed on garbage, and all sorts of filthy things, 

 but their flesh is strong' and bad in propor- 

 tion. " They are, on Long Island, fatten- 

 ed upon a coarse kind of crab, called a 

 horse-foot (Limulus polyphemus), prodigious 

 quantities of which are cast upon the shores. 

 The young ducks grow very fast upon this, 

 and very fat ; but wo unto him that has to 

 smell them when they come from the spit; 

 and as for eating them, a man must have a 

 stomach indeed to do that." 



It is, however, within my own experience, 

 that, no matter what may have been the pre- 

 vious food of the duck, if we give them as 

 much corn or oats, with a little fat, as they 



