ORNAMENTAL WATERFOWL. 15 
overlooked, and unless there is an abundance of grass at 
the disposal of the birds, large handfuls should be torn up 
and thrown to them in the water, together with any sort of 
cabbage, lettuce, chicory, or other attainable vegetable. 
Animal food also enters into their dietary, such as worms, 
slugs, and small frogs, while even mice have been known to 
be devoured, the latter in one case causing the death of a 
beautiful Chilée Wigeon, which bolted its prey head foremost, 
and died from suffocation, with the tail protruding from its 
beak. In the case of delicate newly-imported specimens, or 
where the appetite fails after illness, I have seen great good 
accrue from the administration of small pieces of well-boiled 
meat from the stock-pot; at the same time this is not to be 
regarded as a regular article of diet, but rather as a remedial 
agent in cases of urgency, while Spratt’s meat biscuits broken 
up and thrown on the water may be classed in the same 
category. It is a good plan to plant chicory, dandelion, 
comfrey, and cabbage, &c., in the early spring, so as to ensure 
a succession of green food for the waterfowl, thus obviating 
the necessity for constant calls upon the kitchen garden, and 
permitting the fancier if he pleases to transplant young roots 
into the duck run, where the birds can pluck them at their 
pleasure. 
Regularity in feeding, both as regards time and quantity, 
is as essential in the treatment of waterfowl as in that of 
any other live stock, and it is for the fancier to determine 
whether he will leave the grain constantly within reach of the 
birds, or if it shall be administered once or twice a day. This 
latter plan, when accompanied by the whistle or call of the 
feeder, has, however, the desirable effect of rendering the birds 
more familiar, a circumstance of great importance where ducks 
or geese are kept for the purpose of exhibition. 
