548 



The Illustrated Book o.f Poulthy. 



head. However perfect the birds might be, they generally throw some white feathers after the first 

 year ; in fact I have known them in course of years become almost pure white. 



" These ducks have quite justified the many pleas that have been made by their fanciers for a 

 class to themselves ; and wherever it has been given it has been nothing unusual to see them 

 represented by sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or even twenty pens ; but they have a claim for greater 

 consideration at the hands of poultry committees, and I would add judges also, than they receive, 

 inasmuch as they are generally bred by the exhibitors, and not imported for exhibition at one or 

 two shows, and then offered for sale, as is the case with so many of the ornamental varieties of 

 water-fowl against which they have so frequently and unjustly to compete." 



CALL DUCKS are less seen at poultry-shows now than formerly. At one time they were 

 the principal "fancy" ducks shown; but of late the Mandarin, Carolina, and other more striking 

 varieties have pretty much superseded them as exhibition birds, though they still retain their 

 popularity for lakes and other ornamental waters, and are occasionally used as decoys on account 

 of their constant utterance of the shrill " call" from which they take their name. For show they 



GREY CALL DUCKS. 



should be as small as possible, but very good ones are rather rare. Mr. Serjeantson— a capital 

 judge— informs us that the best he has seen for many years were shown at Birmingham in 1872, 

 by Mr. Robertson Gladstone, of Liverpool. 



There are two varieties of Call Ducks, termed White and Grey, which resemble respectively 

 Bantam Aylesburys and Rouens, except that the bills of the white variety are a bright yellow. 

 Fanciers also prefer a slightly different shape for the heads ; those birds being most esteemed 

 which have very short bills and prominent foreheads ; or, as a pigeon-fancier would call it, a " good 

 stop" to the bill. On the water Call Ducks are very active and lively. 



THE MANDARIN DUCK, called also the Chinese Teal, and by naturalists Aix galericidata, 

 is certainly the^most gorgeous of all the ornamental duck tribes ; and having been exhibited for 

 many years, it is matter of astonishment that it should not as yet have been described in even 

 the most pretentious works on poultr}-. It very closely resembles the variety next on our list, 

 and at most large shows now a special class is offered at which either Mandarins and Carolinas 

 alone, or in some cases, "any other ornamental variety except black " are allowed to compete 

 together. To class them with Black East Indians, as is still done at some shows, is most unjust 

 to both classes, since, except in the matter of size, there is no common standard of comparison. 



