THE POULTRY BOOK. 307 
lias had great experience with water-fowl, has favoured us with the following notes 
on the management and characters of the variety : — 
These birds are of exceedingly hardy constitution, and will hear severity of 
weather without any injury. They are, however, very prone to attempt to leave 
their habitation before any extreme change of weather, such as approaching storms 
or excessive frost. At these times their restlessness not unfrequently induces them 
to take wing, and sometimes, joining flocks of wild fowls, they fall a prey to 
persons shooting wild birds at the approach of nightfall. I know many broods of 
Buenos Ayres that, in winter-time, frequently absent themselves for many days 
together, and ramble to distant extensive waters, but eventually return in 
safety to their owners. 
“During these excursions they always become very wild, and it is with extreme 
difficulty any one can manage to approach them ; yet singularly, when they are per- 
mitted to return home again without injury or accident, they seem but little altered 
in their dispositions, and will retire to their usual haunts, as though no such freak 
had been indulged in. They are naturally somewhat shy at all times, but of course 
this trait of character is much modified by the treatment they receive from their 
owners. I have even known them fly to feeding-marshes, five or six miles from 
their owner’s house, early in the morning, and return towards the time the poultry 
generally received their evening meal of corn, staying until morning. But much 
seems dependent on whether or no there are any wild ducks in the neighbour- 
hood to entice them to such wayward practices, for certainly there are now many 
instances in which flocks of the Buenos Ayres ducks prove equally attached to the 
homestead as any other description of tame ducks. 
“ The flavour of their flesh is very superior, and assimilates very closely to that 
of the Mallard. I have oftentimes known them placed on table as wild duck 
without the deception being discovered by considerable numbers of guests, and 
who afterwards, on being informed, could scarcely believe they had been thus 
imposed upon. Buenos Ayres ducks lay well, and the eggs are of good quality ; 
at the commencement of the laying season, the shells of the eggs are of a sooty 
hue ; gradually however, the eggs assume a more natural colour, until the last 
produced are but little different in appearance to those of the common wild 
duck. By very long domestication, these birds attain an increased size, and, 
although not permitted access to any common ducks, they even then willshow a 
tendency to sport triflingly in colour, and even occasionally to mottle a little 
with white around the eyelids, or in scattered feathers here and there along the 
breast. Such birds are of course inadmissible in the exhibition-room. 
“ Their plumage should be wholly black, glossed all over vv^ith a peculiarly 
lustrous though very dark green shade ; the legs are sooty black, as are the beaks 
of the females ; those of the drakes assume rather a dark yellowish green colour on 
the upper mandible ; the feathers on the head and neck of the males are far more 
glossy than those of their mates. The smallest and most neatly built among the 
Buenos Ayres are the most admired.” 
