FLORIDA DUSKY DUCK 
67 
Hunt. This species is not sufficiently abundant in any one area to be profitably 
hunted with decoys or blinds. Specimens are usually taken by still-hunting, or by 
pushing about in canoes. 
Behavior in Captivity. Southern Black Duck seem never to have been ex- 
ported to Europe, probably because they are not ornamental. But in America they 
are occasionally kept. I obtained three or four from the late Wilton Lockwood some 
fifteen years ago. A few years since, Mr. Mcllhenny sent me several pairs from 
Avery Island, Louisiana. They never nested, but I crossed the males with Mallard 
Ducks in a hybridizing experiment, the object of which was to determine the amount 
of Mendelian segregation in the second generation. It may be of interest to note here 
that the first cross produces hybrids very much lighter-colored and more Mallard- 
like than the Black Duck x Mallard crosses. In fact this species behaves in a genetic 
sense as if it were a Mallard with the male characters dropped out, rather than like 
a Black Duck. Moore {fide Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, 1884) possessed seven birds 
which he had hatched out under a hen. Even in the third summer he did not succeed 
in breeding them, though they were in their native climate. Mcllhenny, however, is 
said to have bred them on a large enclosed pond. He erossed many with Mallards, 
apparently with the idea of producing a local strain of the latter duck. 
My birds stood our northern winters as well as other water-fowl and seemed no 
more delicate than common Black Ducks or Mallards. 
