cies having had abnormal characters in
comparison with all the other species of the genus, as with hook-billed and
penguin ducks;--on all the breeds, as far as is known, being fertile
together;[445]--on all the breeds having the same general disposition,
instinct, &c. But one fact bearing on this question may be noticed: in the
great duck family, one species alone, namely, the male of {280} _A.
boschas_, has its four middle tail-feathers curled upwardly; now in every
one of the above-named domestic breeds these curled feathers exist, and on
the supposition that they are descended from distinct species, we must
assume that man formerly hit upon species all of which had this now unique
character. Moreover, sub-varieties of each breed are coloured almost
exactly like the wild duck, as I have seen with the largest and smallest
breeds, namely Rouens and Call-ducks, and, as Mr. Brent states,[446] is the
case with Hook-billed ducks. This gentleman, as he informs me, crossed a
white Aylesbury drake and a black Labrador duck, and some of the ducklings
as they grew up assumed the plumage of the wild duck.

With respect to Penguins, I have not seen many specimens, and none were
coloured precisely like the wild duck; but Sir James Brooke sent me three
skins from Lombok and Bali, in the Malayan archipelago; the two females
were paler and more rufous than the wild duck, and the drake differed in
having the whole under and upper surface (excepting the neck, tail-coverts,
tail, and wings) silver-grey, finely pencilled with dark lines, closely
like certain parts of the plumage of the wild mallard. But I found this
drake to be identical in every feather with a variety of the common breed
procured from a farm-yard in Kent, and I have occasionally elsewhere seen
similar specimens. The occurrence of a duck bred under so peculiar a
climate as that of the Malayan archipelago, where the wild species does not
exist, with exactly the same plumage as may occasionally be seen in our
farm-yards, is a fact worth notice. Nevertheless the climate of the Malayan
archipelago apparently does tend to cause the duck to vary much, for
Zollinger,[447] speaking of the Penguin breed, says that in Lombok "there
is an unusual and very wonderful variety of ducks." One Penguin drake which
I kept alive differed from those of which the skins were sent me from
Lombok, in having its breast and back partially coloured with
chestnut-brown, thus more closely resembling the