and seems to have originated in the Malayan archipelago. It
walks with its body extremely erect, and with its thin neck stretched
straight upwards. Beak rather short. Tail upturned, including only 18
feathers. Femur and meta-tarsi elongated.

Almost all naturalists admit that the several breeds are descended from the
common wild duck (_Anas boschas_); most fanciers, on the other hand, take
as usual a very different view.[440] Unless we deny that domestication,
prolonged during centuries, can affect even such unimportant characters as
colour, size, and in a slight degree proportional dimensions and mental
disposition, there is no reason whatever to doubt that the domestic duck is
descended from the common wild species, for the one differs from the other
in no important character. We have some historical evidence with respect to
the period and progress of the domestication of the duck. It was
unknown[441] to the ancient Egyptians, to the Jews of the Old Testament,
and to the Greeks of the Homeric period. About eighteen centuries ago
Columella[442] and Varro speak of the necessity of keeping ducks in netted
enclosures like other wild fowl, so that at this period there was danger of
their flying away. {278} Moreover, the plan recommended by Columella to
those who might wish to increase their stock of ducks, namely, to collect
the eggs of the wild bird and to place them under a hen, shows, as Mr.
Dixon remarks, "that the duck had not at this time become a naturalised and
prolific inmate of the Roman poultry-yard." The origin of the domestic duck
from the wild species is recognised in nearly every language of Europe, as
Aldrovandi long ago remarked, by the same name being applied to both. The
wild duck has a wide range from the Himalayas to North America. It crosses
readily with the domestic bird, and the crossed offspring are perfectly
fertile.

Both in North America and Europe the wild duck has been found easy to tame
and breed. In Sweden this experiment was carefully tried by Tiburtius; he
succeeded in rearing wild ducks for three generations, but, though they
were treated like common ducks, they did not vary even in a single feather.
The young birds suffered from being allowed to swim about in cold
water,[443] as is known to be the case, though the fact is a strange one,
with the young of the common domestic duck. An accurate and well-known
observer in England[444] has described in detail his often repeated and