282 



DOMESTIC DUCKS. 



Chap. VIII. 



falsely asserted that Call-ducks hatch their eggs in less time than common 



ducks. 17 



The Penguin duck is the most remarkable of all the breeds ; the thin 

 neck and body are carried erect; the wings are small; the tail is upturned; 

 and the thigh-bones and metatarsi are considerably lengthened in propor- 

 tion with the same bones in the wild duck. In five specimens examined by 

 me there were only eighteen tail-feathers instead of twenty as in the wild 

 duck • but I have also found only eighteen and nineteen tail-feathers in 

 two Labrador ducks. On the middle toe, in three specimens, there were 

 twenty-seven or twenty-eight scutellse, whereas in two wild ducks there 

 were thirty-one and thirty-two. The Penguin when crossed transmits 

 with much power its peculiar form of body and gait to its offspring ; this 

 was manifest with some hybrids raised in the Zoological Gardens between 

 one of these birds and the Egyptian goose 18 (Anser jEgyptiacus), and 

 likewise with some mongrels which I raised between the Penguin and 

 Labrador duck. I am not much surprised that some writers have 

 maintained that this breed must be descended from an unknown and 

 distinct species ; but from the reasons already assigned, it seems to me 

 far more probable that it is the descendant, much modified by domestica- 

 tion under an unnatural climate, of Anas boschas. 



Osteological Characters.— The skulls of the several breeds differ from each 



Fig. 39.— Skulls, viewed laterally, reduced to two-thirds of the natural size. 

 A. Wild Duck. B. Hook-hilled Duck. 



other and from the skull of the wild duck in very little except in the pro- 

 portional length and curvature of the premaxillaries. These latter bones 

 in the Call-duck are short, and a line drawn from their extremities to the 

 summit of the skull is nearly straight, instead of being concave as m tne 



T 7 'Cottage Gardener,' April 9th, 

 1861. 



18 These hybrids have been described 



by M. Selys-Longchamps in the ' Bul- 

 letins (torn. xii. No. 10) Acad. Koy. de 

 Bruxelles.' 





. 



