[433] It may be well to explain how the calculation has been made for the third column. In G. bankiva the leg-bones are to the wing-bones as 86 : 54, or as (neglecting decimals) 100 : 62;—in Cochins as 311 : 162, or as 100 : 52;—in Dorkings as 557 : 248, or as 100 : 44; and so on for the other breeds. We thus get the series of 62, 52, 44 for the relative-weights of the wing-bones in G. bankiva, Cochins, Dorkings, &c. And now taking 100, instead of 62, for the weight of the wing-bones in G. bankiva, we get, by another rule of three, 83 as the weight of the wing-bones in Cochins; 70 in the Dorkings; and so on for the remainder of the third column in the table.
[434] Mr. Blyth (in 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' 2nd series, vol. i., 1848, p. 456) gives 3¼ lb. as the weight of a full-grown male G. bankiva; but from what I have seen of the skins and skeletons of various breeds, I cannot believe that my two specimens of G. bankiva could have weighed so much.
[435] The third column is calculated on the same principle as explained in the previous foot-note, p. 271.
[436] 'Poultry Chronicle' (1854), vol. ii. p.91, and vol. i. p. 330.
[437] Dr. Turral, in 'Bull. Soc. d'Acclimat.,' tom. vii., 1860, p. 541.
[438] Willughby's 'Ornithology,' by Ray, p. 381. This breed is also figured by Albin, in 1734, in his 'Nat. Hist. of Birds,' vol. ii. p. 86.
[439] F. Cuvier, in 'Annales du Muséum,' tom. ix. p. 128, says that moulting and incubation alone stop these ducks laying. Mr. B. P. Brent makes a similar remark in the 'Poultry Chronicle,' 1855, vol. iii. p. 512.
[440] Rev. E. S. Dixon, 'Ornamental and Domestic Poultry' (1848), p. 117. Mr. B. P. Brent, in 'Poultry Chronicle,' vol. iii., 1855, p. 512.
[441] Crawfurd on the 'Relation of Domesticated Animals to Civilisation,' read before the Brit. Assoc. at Oxford, 1860.
[442] Dureau de la Malle, in 'Annales des Sciences Nat.,' tom. xvii. p. 164; and tom. xxi. p. 55. Rev. E. S. Dixon, 'Ornamental Poultry,' p. 118. Tame ducks were not known in Aristotle's time, as remarked by Volz, in his 'Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte,' 1852, s. 78.