274 Pearl and Surface, 
I. It is an assumption for which we have been able to find 
little historical warrant to say that selection for egg production was 
systematically or generally practised with poultry before sometime in 
the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet there are definite and, 
by all tests possible to make, authentic records of egg production as 
high as anything we now know, but made before 1800. 
2. The definite experimental results set forth in the present paper 
do not afford any evidence that it is possible to increase egg 
production by mass selection methods. 
3. There is evidence that the explanation for the superior egg 
production in the domesticated as compared with the wild Gallus 
lies in the effect of the environmental influences comprised in the process 
and conditions of domestication itself. This evidence consists in the 
known fact that wild birds other than Gallus when put under 
conditions of domestication have their egg production immediately 
increased over what it was in the wild state, without the intervention 
of any selective breeding whatever. We may cite here two instances 
in support of these statements. The first has to do with the wild 
Mallard duck (Anas boschas) in captivity. Mr. E, H. Austin!), 
who makes a specialty of domesticating wild water fowl and has 
had much experience in this direction makes the following statement: 
“The Mallard duck in the wild state lays 12 to 18 eggs. In captivity 
ıt will lay 80 to 100 if the bird in confined at night in a pen and 
has liberty (in pond or large enclosure) during the day, and the eggs 
removed daily. As far as my experience goes this is the case with 
no other variety of duck. The others will desert their nest and stop 
laying if their eggs or nest are troubled. The Mallard is the original 
ancestor of the Rouen ducks, and when taken into captivity grows. 
large and coarse in a few generations. It is necessary to constantly 
use wild drakes to maintain the fine lines and graceful carriage of 
the wild bird.” 
A similar condition of affairs has recently been recorded by 
Duerden?) for the ostrich, a bird which has certainly not been. 
selected for egg production during its period of domestication. This. 
investigator states as one of the results of his stucy of some ostrich 
egg records that: “The numbers show that ostriches, like poultry, 
1) Austin, E. H. Original Laying Capacity. Farm-Poultry (Boston) Vol. XIX, 
P: 347, 1908. 
2) Duerden, J. E. Experiments with Ostriches. VI — Egg — laying Records 
of Ostriches. Agricultural. Journal (Cape of Good Hope) April, 1908. 
