"Honorable Secretary" of the Indian Runner Duck Club of Eng- 

 land. Mr. Walton says that the best birds have always been in 

 a very few hands. He wrote me, personally, that even in Eng- 

 land "breeders, exhibitors and judges fell into nearly every pos- 

 sible trouble with Indian Runners and reduced them from an out- 

 standing and most distinctive bird to a common type, small, cross- 

 bred duck with fairly even markings. That was the Exhibition 

 Runner ( ?) of ten or eleven years ago. 100 per cent of Ameri- 

 can (Standard-bred) Runners and 99 per cent of English are 

 wrong in shape, and position of legs. Color without type is of no 

 value." 



Mr. Walton has also said that it was quite certain that many 

 earlier judges of Indian Runners "had no acquaintance with the 

 genuine Runner." It was under this strained situation that the 

 Indian Runner Duck Club in England took up the work, and 

 formed a Standard calculated to preserve the distinctiveness of 

 this most remarkable breed. The birds illustrated in English 

 poultry journals at about this time, according to Mr. Walton, 

 "showed strong evidence of Mallard blood." 



It was within the decade before the English breeders found 

 their bearings that most of our earlier importations were made. 

 This shows how strong was the probability that many of these 

 earlier importations into the United States were of mixed blood. 

 The British Indian Runner Duck Club intervened to save the 

 Runners from extinction as to their most distinctive characteris- 

 tics. It superseded the Standard formed by Mr. Donald and Mr. 

 Digby, (with which there had been dissatisfaction for some time) 

 by one better designed "to retain the valuable utility and artistic 

 qualities" of the breed. A part of its object, as stated, was to 

 keep the exhibition of the Runner "free from dishonorable and 

 fraudulent practices." 



In order to get at the English ideal of shape, it may be well 

 to give a word to "the old, cod, soda-water bottle." This bottle,^ 



14 



