Black East India Ducks. 
547 
lower bill. I never yet saw any bird of the breed absolutely free from white feathers. If none are 
to be seen the first year, some are sure to show themselves after the first moult, often sooner than 
that ; and the most provoking part of it is that the smaller and more delicate, and on that account 
the more valuable the bird is, the more liable it is to this fault. Big coarse strains, which are of no 
value except for the table, are comparatively exempt. I have had many old birds, Birmingham 
winners in their youth, which have in the course of years become more than half white ; and Mrs. 
Haynes, who has kept the breed much longer, I fancy, than any one else in the kingdom, has told 
me that she has experienced the same thing. 
“ In form, both drakes and ducks should be very neat, elegant, and symmetrical, with small, 
high-bred looking heads and bills. In size, to be in the fashion, they cannot be too small. Mr. 
J. K. Fowler, who has had great experience of the breed, says, in a work I have seen, that 
they should weigh ‘ as little as two pounds if possible.’ I have had many of this weight, and I 
have one now, a duck, three or four years old, which would not draw the scales at one and three- 
quarter pounds ; but as a rule I think from two and a quarter to two and a half pounds is a fair 
weight for a duck for exhibition ; drakes are rather heavier. I fancy if the whole class- at 
Birmingham were weighed, very few pairs would be found under five pounds. I must, however, 
say I think it is a pity that smallness should be made so much of in judging a class of Black East 
Indians. Years ago, when Black East Indians were almost the only ‘fancy ducks,’ it might have 
been all very well to try and make the breed the ‘ Bantams,’ so to speak, of the duck tribe ; but in 
these days, when Mandarins, Carolinas, Teal, et hoc genus omne , are spread over the country in such 
numbers, I think Black East Indian breeders might be allowed by the judges to look to utility as 
well as to fancy. This variety naturally is very hardy and very prolific, but it is equally certain that 
the smaller they are bred the more delicate they become, and the less prolific. They are capital 
eating too, quite equal to their progenitors, Anas boschas ; but that good quality is of little use if 
there is nothing on them to eat. I would not have them brought out as rivals to the gigantic 
Aylesbury and Rouen ; but I would say, let them be shown of a fair average size, and then let the 
judges decide by brilliancy of plumage combined with symmetry and elegance of form. 
“Black East Indians follow the rule that ‘ like breeds like.’ There is no secret in breeding 
them for exhibition, except procuring in the first instance the best birds possible. If the parents 
are good, the offspring will be so also. On the other hand, if you breed from birds too large, or of 
bad colour, or with bad bills, the young will in all probability be the same. It takes many years 
to breed down a stock of big ducks into little ones, but one cross of strange blood is generally 
enough to give increased size, which it takes a long time to get rid of again ; and therefore if prize- 
winning be the object sought for, any admixture of fresh blood must be used with great discretion. 
“ From what I have already said, it will be guessed that I have not found this breed either 
prolific or hardy ; but the fault, as I have also shown, is the fault of the fashion, not of the breed. 
There are plenty of strains of this breed which are hardy and prolific enough for anything, but they 
are useless for exhibition. A friend of mine in Lancashire rears every year about a hundred merely 
for the table. But if the parents are very small, the shells of the eggs are very thin, and apt to be 
broken during the time of sitting ; and when they are hatched, the young are very delicate for the 
first month or so ; after that I very seldom lose one, or have any trouble with them. 
“ They require no special management. I generally turn a drake and two or three ducks into 
my garden in the early spring, and let them stay there for a month or six weeks. Except when 
the ground is frozen, I never feed them, but make them find their own living, and a very good living 
they make of it ; the quantity of slugs and worms they put out of sight is something enormous 
Again, in the autumn I turn the whole flock of them into a field, in which there is a small pond or 
