successful experiments in domesticating the wild duck. Young birds are
easily reared from eggs hatched under a bantam; but to succeed it is
indispensable not to place the eggs of both the wild and tame duck under
the same hen, for in this case "the young wild ducks die off, leaving their
more hardy brethren in undisturbed possession of their foster-mother's
care. The difference of habit at the onset in the newly-hatched ducklings
almost entails such a result to a certainty." The wild ducklings were from
the first quite tame towards those who took care of them as long as they
wore the same clothes, and likewise to the dogs and cats of the house. They
would even snap with their beaks at the dogs, and drive them away from any
spot which they coveted. But they were much alarmed at strange men and
dogs. Differently from what {279} occurred in Sweden, Mr. Hewitt found that
his young birds always changed and deteriorated in character in the course
of two or three generations; notwithstanding that great care was taken to
prevent any crossing with tame ducks. After the third generation his birds
lost the elegant carriage of the wild species, and began to acquire the
gait of the common duck. They increased in size in each generation, and
their legs became less fine. The white collar round the neck of the mallard
became broader and less regular, and some of the longer primary
wing-feathers became more or less white. When this occurred, Mr. Hewitt
always destroyed his old stock and procured fresh eggs from wild nests; so
that he never bred the same family for more than five or six generations.
His birds continued to pair together, and never became polygamous like the
common domestic duck. I have given these details, because no other case, as
far as I know, has been so carefully recorded by a competent observer of
the progress of change in wild birds reared for several generations in a
domestic condition.

From these considerations there can hardly be a doubt that the wild duck is
the parent of the common domestic kind; nor need we look to distinct
species for the parentage of the more distinct breeds, namely, Penguin,
Call, Hook-billed, Tufted, and Labrador ducks. I will not repeat the
arguments used in the previous chapters on the improbability of man having
in ancient times domesticated several species since become unknown or
extinct, though ducks are not readily exterminated in the wild state;--on
some of the supposed parent-spe