TSE WOOD DUCK OH SUMMF.R DUCK. 19» 



plumage has disappeared, and the male has received a garb like that of the 

 female, though of a somewhat darker tint, lu the early part of August this 

 new plumage begins to drop off gradually, and, by the 10th of October the drake 

 will appear again in all his rich maguificenee of dress, than which scarcely any- 

 thing throughout the whole wide field of nature can be seen more lovely or bet- 

 ter arranged to charm the eye of man. 



'"I enclosed two male birds in a Coop from the middle of May to the middle 

 of October, and saw them every day during the whole of their capti-ritT-. Par- 

 haps the moulting in other individuals may vary a little with regard to time. 

 Th'ns we may say that once every year, for a very shortperiod, the drake goes, as it 

 were, into an eclipse, so that, from the early part of the month of July to about 

 the first week in August, neither in the poultry-yards of civilized man, nor 

 through the vast expanse of nature's wildest range, can there be found a drake 

 in that plumage which, at all other seasons of the year, is so remarkably splendid 

 and diversified.' " 



We have no trustworthy history of the earliest domestication of the duck, but 

 it doubtless occurred in ancient times. There are now numerous domesticated 

 varieties, varying in plumage from white to blacbi One of the most curious re- 

 sults of domestication is that the drake, which in the wild state is strictly mon- 

 ogamous, becomes freely polygamous. 



The wild Mallards are easily tamed, if taken when very young, but it requires 

 many generations to breed out all their wild habits; this h^sbeen done in the case 

 of the common duck by adding to their weight through abundant supplies of 

 food, so that flight becomes more difficult. In confinement they wiU Nbreed 

 freely with the tame ducks, the hybrids thus produced being monogamous. 



This fertility of the hybrids is one proof of the common origin of the Mallard 

 and the domestic duck; another is found in the fact that purely bred wild ducks 

 have shown, when bred in domestication, a marked tendency toward variation. 

 Thus Mr. Teebay states that he has had a strain of white ducks to appear among 

 some wild ducks which he was breeding, and this strain had reproduced Itself at 

 the time of his writing.* 



THE WOOD DUCK OE SXTMMEE DTTCK. 



This duck, Aiscsponsa of the naturalists, sometimes, though improperly, called 

 the Carolina duck, is found throughout the greater part of North America, be- 

 ing a permanent resident of the warmer regions, and a summer migrant to the 

 northward. It is the most beautiful of waterfowl, except its cousin, the Man- 

 darin duek, and on this account has been bred in domestication, although not 

 for a sufficient length of time to overcome its wild propensities. 



in the natural state the Wood Duck makes its nest in the woods— hence its 

 name— in the hoUow of a tree, overhanging the water if possible. Its eggs are 

 smaller than a hen's and have surfaces like polished ivory.f 



The drake is about nineteen or twenty inches long, with a green head, glossed 

 with purple and surmounted with a pendant crest or plume of green, bronze and 

 velvet; the upper p art of the throat is white; the breast chestnut; the sides 



*Tegetmeier. ■\(iii\, 1 



