There is abundant reason for this, with the Runners. A single 

 I. Runner egg ready for exclusion, is likely to weigh three 

 ounces, and the ducks are quite reasonably likely to lay six day- 

 out of seven, during at least a portion of the year. Prof. James 

 E. Rice, by experiment, found that a color-fed hen deposited 

 some fourteen layers in the formation of an egg, showing that 

 this egg had been fourteen days in growing from the pin-head 

 ovule to the two-ounce product of average exclusion. If we 

 might suppose a duck to be 14 days in growing an egg, from the 

 beginning to its readiness for exclusion and laying six eggs in 

 a week, she must be carrying within her narrow body, at one 

 time, twelve eggs, of diminishing sizes from the three-ounce fin- 

 ished product, to the tiny, but enlarging ovule of the egg cluster. 

 It is, of course, impossible to conceive that such a weight of 

 eggs, as Runners actually carry should not change both the shape 

 and the carriage of the female for the time being. Thus it comes 

 about that we have to speak of these birds as in "exhibition 

 form" and "laying form," while there is still another period of 

 nearly half a year, during which they eat so much that they 

 appear rather logy and loose feathered, and assume the carriage 

 of maturity only at intervals. This is during their growth toward 

 maturity, and we need for this period a third term, such as 

 "growing form," to describe them then. 



In my experience, no fowl ever sent out has given such 

 good, general satisfaction as the type of penciled Runners now 

 bred in this country. Nearly all the letters of acknowledgement 

 which I receive, as well as those which other breeders have shown 

 me, express the greatest satisfaction with the average birds. A 

 short time ago, I saw one which read thus: "I have never 

 received anything by express which gave me so much satisfac- 

 tion and delight as the coop of Indian Runners you sent me." 

 These were the average run of low priced birds. I have never 



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