10 
feathers are well curled and hard. The thighs are short and stout and 
of ashy-gray plumage; the shanks are short and strong, and in color 
orange with brownish tinge; the toes and webs are of the same color as 
the shanks. 
The head of the Kouen duck, like that of the drake, is long and finely 
formed, but with a deep-brown plumage and two stripes of lighter 
brown extending from the beak to behind the eyes 5 bill, long, broad, 
and somewhat flat, brownish orange in color, blotched with darker 
shade upon the upper part and ending in a black beam at the tip. The 
neck is neatly curved, long and slender, light brown in plumage, penciled 
with a darker shade of the same color 5 unlike the drake, there is no 
white ring on the neck. The back is long, of a light-brown color richly 
marked with green; breast, full and round and of dark-brown plumage, 
penciled with lighter brown; body, long, deep, and broad, the under 
part and sides of plumage being grayish brown, each feather penciled 
with rich dark brown to the point of the tail. The wings are short for 
the size of the bird and are carried closely against the sides; the color 
of the plumage is grayish brown, intermingled with green, with bars 
of purple edged with white, the colors being distinct; primaries are 
brown. The tail feathers are stiff and of a liglit-brown color, distinctly 
marked with pencilingsof dark greenish brown; tail coverts are brown, 
penciled with the same dark brown, or greenish brown, as the tail. 
The thighs are dark brown, penciled; and shanks, toes, and webs are 
orange or orange brown. 
Both the Bouen drake and duck, clothed in plumage attractive and 
pleasing to the eye, are as much fanciers 7 fowls as any of the varieties 
of chickens, yet they are of much value as market birds. The only 
objection to them, aside from their slow maturing qualities, is that of 
the dark pinfeathers. This should not stand against them any more 
than it does against the many valuable varieties of chickens that have 
dark plumage and dark pinfeathers. To the farmer who intends rais¬ 
ing ducks for market purposes they are to be recommended. 
Weight.—The standard weight of the adult drake is 9 pounds; adult 
duck, 8 pounds; young drake, 8 pounds, and young duck, 7 pounds. 
BLACK CAYUGA DUCKS. 
History.—The black Cayuga (fig. 5) is distinctly an American duck, 
having been bred so long in this country that all trace of its origin is 
lost. It is said that it was first found in the central part of New York, 
on Cayuga Lake. It was sometimes called the u Big Black duck , 77 and 
again the “Lake duck , 77 but is now known only as the Black Cayuga 
duck. By some it is supposed to have originally come from the wild 
Black duck, and another story has it that it was first found in Dutchess 
County, in the State of New York, where a miller was raising a flock of 
thirty, which, he said, were bred from a pair he had captured several 
years previous in a mill pond. They were kept 111 the poultry yard, 
