280 DOMESTIC DUCKS. 



Chap. VIII. 



A. boschas, has its four middle tail-feathers curled upwardly ; 

 now in every one of the above-named domestic breeds these 

 curled feathers exist, and on the supposition that they are 

 descended from distinct species, we must assume that man 

 formerly hit upon species all of which had this now unique 

 character. Moreover, sub-varieties of each breed are coloured 

 almost exactly like the wild duck, as I have seen with the 

 largest and smallest breeds, namely Eouens and Call-ducks, 

 and, as Mr. Brent states, 11 is the case with Hook-billed ducks. 

 This gentleman, as he informs me, crossed a white Aylesbury 

 drake and a black Labrador duck, and some of the ducklings 

 as they grew up assumed the plumage of the wild duck. 



With respect to Penguins, I have not seen many specimens, 

 and none were coloured precisely like the wild duck ; but Sir 

 James Brooke sent me three skins from Lombok and Bali, in 

 the Malayan archipelago ; the two females were paler and more 

 rufous than the wild cluck, and the drake differed in having the 

 whole under and upper surface (excepting the neck, tail-coverts, 

 tail, and wings) silver-grey, finely pencilled with dark lines, 

 closely like certain parts of the plumage of the wild mallard. 

 But I found this drake to be identical in every feather with a 

 variety of the common breed procured from a farmyard in 

 Kent, and I have occasionally elsewhere seen similar specimens. 

 The occurrence of a duck bred under so peculiar a climate as 

 that of the Malayan archipelago, where the wild species does 

 not exist, with exactly the same plumage as may occasionally 

 be seen in our farm-yards, is a fact worth notice. Nevertheless 

 the climate of the Malayan archipelago apparently does tend to 

 cause the duck to vary much, for Zollinger, 12 speaking of the 

 Penguin breed, says that in Lombok " there is an unusual and 

 very wonderful variety of ducks." One Penguin drake which I 

 kept alive differed from those of which the skins were sent me 

 from Lombok, in having its breast and back partially coloured 

 with chesnut-brown, thus more closely resembling the Mallard. 



From these several facts, more especially from the drakes of 

 all the breeds having curled tail-feathers, and from certain 

 sub-varieties in each breed occasionally resembling in general 



11 ' Poultry Chronicle,' 1855, vol. iii. 12 ' Journal of the Indian Archi- 



p. 512. • pelago,' vol. v. p. 334. 



