84



Mr. Frank Finn,



melanism, the other towards albinism, yet never actually getting a

white or black plumage, and looking much like true species. Pro¬

bably under human selection they would breed true, hut the females

seem to exercise no choice, the red-flanked or grey-breasted drakes

finding favour equally with the typical form of the species.


The type form of the Muscovy duck is not so well known as

that of the Mallard, the species being a bird of the warm parts of

America, so I may here mention that the true colour is black richly

glossed with green or purple according to the part of the plumage,

with the wing-coverts, upper and under, pure white. The drake has

the naked skin of the face black (except along the eyebrows, wdiere

it is red) and smooth, not carunculated, and the caruncle above the

base of the bill very small ; the duck has no bare skin about the face

and no caruncle at all, but entirely resembles the drake in plumage.


The immature birds have the forehead, cheeks, and under¬

parts frosted with white edgings to the feathers, and this is lost by

a moult, and the facial bare patch gained, before the white wing-

patch is developed, i.e. by the end of the first year, judging from the

development of wild-coloured domestic specimens. In such, the

denudation of the skin round the eye is preceded by a growth of

white feathers in that part, seeming to show that having white

feathers on a part is next to having none at all there — a fact which

may have wide significance. In the domestic female the face is

usually bare as in the male, but always red, whereas in the male it

is sometimes nearly all black as in the wild form.


The ducklings of typically-coloured tame Muscovys are like

young mallard, i.e. black above and yellow on the cheeks and below,

and in fact, only differ from them noticeably in having the “ nail "

at the end of the beak red and the tail longer.


I will now detail the results of crossing a wild male Muscovy,

received at the Zoo in 1908, and still living, with tame females.

His first mate was of a variety common in the domestic race—

which generally, by the way, shows more white than the wild type

— she had a white head, red eye-patch, dark eyes, and dull yellow

feet, the rest of the colouring being normal. Her ducklings all

showed some white speckling on the head, and were very free flyers

and perched readily in trees, that being the habit of the wild race —



