“Domestication does not by any means always improve the qualities of animals subjected to our care. If there is gain in corpulence, in quantity of alimentary matter, there is frequently loss on the side of what might be called the moral qualities. So it is that the tame duck is not so good a brooder nor so devoted a mother as the wild one. The hen, on the [[112]]contrary, has forgotten none of her maternal duties; she even carries them to excess in the hen-house, until she lets herself die of starvation on her nest, a thing she would not do in her wild state. Hence, it is to the hen, a better mother than the duck, that the latter’s eggs are usually entrusted.
“The period of incubation is thirty-one days, the same as with the wild duck. If the brood is hatched at a time of year when the weather is still cold, it would be dangerous for the ducklings to go immediately into the water, whither their instinct calls them, and whither the mother duck that had brooded them would not fail to lead them. Hence the little ones and their mother, hen or duck, are put under a coop in a place apart, where there is no danger of trampling or other rough treatment from the rest of the poultry. During this sequestration the food consists of a mixture of barley flour, boiled potatoes, bran, and chopped nettles, all made into a mush with greasy dish-water. Ducklings have a strong stomach and active digestion; they need from six to eight meals a day, so quickly does their food pass. Let us not forget to put a large plate of water under the coop. It will serve them as a swimming basin in which their wide beaks will practise dabbling and their webbed feet will learn their destined use. Daily sport on this little sheet of water will help them to have patience until the great day when larger evolutions on the broad pond will be allowed.
“A week, two weeks, pass in this way. At last the longed-for moment arrives. The mother duck [[113]]leads her family to the neighboring pond, or the ducklings find their way thither unaided if they have a hen for a nurse. I have told you of the fright of that adoptive mother when she sees her little ones throw themselves joyously into the water, deaf to her supplications. If the pond is not too deep, the hen wades in till the water reaches half-way up her legs, and runs along the edge, calling her dear brood. In vain her courageous devotion, to no purpose her anxiety and grief: the ducklings gain the deep water whither she cannot follow them, and, heedless of the mother admonishing them from the shore, they wag their little pointed tails with joy.
“Like the pig, the duck will eat anything and everything. In still waters, in which it delights, it snaps up tadpoles and little frogs, worms of all kinds and soft shell-fish, water insects and little minnows. In the field it eats the tender herbage and makes prey of the slimy slug and even the snail, no whit abashed by the latter’s shell. In the poultry-yard offer it the kitchen leavings, parings of all kinds, garden refuse, dish-water, and garbage, and the glutton will feast royally.
“Thus because of its voracity the duck is easy to fatten; provided it has abundant food and a chance to play in the water, you may be sure it will take on fat without any other care. Nevertheless, in order to obtain certain results it is necessary to go beyond the bird’s natural gluttony and have recourse to forcible feeding. For a couple of weeks ducks are shut up in a dark place. Morning and [[114]]evening, a servant takes them on her knees, crosses their wings, and opens their beak with one hand while with the other she stuffs their crop with boiled maize. Thus gorged to excess with food, the miserable ducks pass their captivity resting on their stomachs, always panting, almost breathless, half stifled. Some die of surfeit. Finally the rump, distended with fat, spreads the tail-feathers out fan-wise so that they cannot be closed again. This is a sign that the fattening process has reached its extreme limit. Haste is then made to behead the poor creature, which otherwise would soon die of suffocation.”
“And why, if you please,” asked Jules, “these horrible tortures if the duck fattens so easily by itself?”
“Alas, my friend, the satisfaction of the stomach makes us cruelly ingenious. In the state of continual suffocation that overtakes the bird when it is gorged with boiled maize, a mortal disease sets in, the disease of the glutton, among men as among ducks. The liver becomes tremendously enlarged and changes to a soft, shapeless mass, oozing grease. Well, this liver, decomposed by disease, furnishes to the palate of connoisseurs an incomparable delicacy. I take their word for it, not being able to speak from experience, as I have none; for, between you and me, my friend, I own that such delicacies would be repugnant to your Uncle Paul. In my humble opinion, it is paying too much for a greasy mouthful to subject the duck to those frightful tortures. [[115]]I will add that the pasties of Amiens and the celebrated ragouts of Nérac and Toulouse are made of these livers.
“To bring this subject to a close, a few words on a second kind of duck, less common in our poultry-yards than the first. It is the Barbary duck, called also the musk duck on account of its odor of musk, and likewise known as the silent duck, because it utters no cry. It is much larger than the common duck, its plumage is darker, of a variegated black and green, and the head of the male is adorned with scales and with fleshy growths of a bright red color.” [[116]]