296 DOMESTIC DUCKS. Chat. VHL 



loquacity : the drake only hisses like common drakes; nevertheless, 

 when paired with the common duck, he transmits to his female 

 offspring a strong quacking tendency. This loquacity seems at 

 first a surprising character to have been acquired under domesti- 

 cation. But the voice varies in the different breeds; Mr. Brent 15 

 says that Hook- billed ducks are very loquacious, and that Eouens 

 utter a "dull, loud, and monotonous cry, easily distinguishable by 

 an experienced ear."' As the loquacity of the Call duck is highly 

 serviceable, these birds being used in decoys, this quality may have 

 been increased by selection. For instance, Colonel Hawker says, if 

 young wild ducks cannot be got for a decoy, " by way of make-shift, 

 select tame birds which are the most clamorous, even if their colour 

 should not be like that of wild ones." 16 It has been erroneously 

 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 proportion with the same bones in the wild duck. 

 In live 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 scutellffl, 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 cegypiiacus), and likewise with some mongrels which I 

 raised between the Penguin and Labrador duck. 1 am not much 

 surprised that some writers should maintain 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 domestication under an 

 unnatural climate, of Anas boschas. 



OsteolvgiccU Characters — The skulls of the several breeds differ 

 from each other and from the skull of the wild duck in very little 

 except in the proportional length and curvature of the premaxil- 

 laries. 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 in the common duck ; so that 



15 ' Poultry Chronicle,' vol. iii. 17 ' Cottage Gardener,' April 9th, 

 1855. p. 312.' With respect to Rouens, 1861. 



see ditto, vol. i., 1854, p. 167. 18 These hybrids have been described 



16 Col. Hawker's ' Instructions to by M. Selys-Longchamps in the 

 young Sportsmen,' quoted by Mr. 'Bulletins (torn. xii. No 10) Acad. 

 Dixon in his ' Ornamental Poultry,' Row de Bruxelles.' 



p. 125. 



