28 necessary to develop the young it is probable that she will not stir from the nest at all. When all the fertile eggs are hatched her next care is to get the brood safely to the water. This, when the distance is great, necessarily demands great caution, and so cunningly is it done that but few persons have encountered the mother and offspring as they make the dangerous journey.[1] If disturbed the young instantly hide as they best can, while the mother quacks loudly, feigns lameness, and flutters off to divert the attention of the intruder from her brood, who lie motionless at her warning notes. Once arrived at the water they are comparatively free from harm, though other perils present themselves from its inmates in the form of pike and other voracious fishes, which seize the ducklings as they disport in quest of insects on the surface or dive beneath it. Throughout the summer the duck continues her care unremittingly, until the young are full grown and feathered; but it is no part of the mallard’s duty to look after his offspring, and indeed he speedily becomes incapable of helping them, for towards the end of May he begins to undergo his extraordinary additional moult, loses the power of flight, and does not regain his full plumage till autumn. About harvest-time the young are well able to shift for themselves, and then resort to the corn-fields at evening, where they fatten on the scattered grain. Towards the end of September or beginning of October both old and young unite in large flocks and betake themselves to the larger waters. If long-continued frost prevail, most of the ducks resort to the estuaries and tidal rivers, or even leave these islands almost entirely. Soon after Christmas the return-flight commences, and then begins anew the course of life already described.
For the farmyard varieties, descending from Anas boschas, see Poultry. The domestication of the duck is very ancient. Several distinct breeds have been established, of which the most esteemed from an economical point of view are those known as the Rouen and Aylesbury; but perhaps the most remarkable deviation from the normal form is the so-called penguin-duck, in which the bird assumes an upright attitude and its wings are much diminished in size. A remarkable breed also is that often named (though quite fancifully) the “Buenos-Ayres” duck, wherein the whole plumage is of a deep black, beautifully glossed or bronzed. But this saturation, so to speak, of colour only lasts in the individual for a few years, and as the birds grow older they become mottled with white, though as long as their reproductive power lasts they “breed true.” The amount of variation in domestic ducks, however, is not comparable to that found among pigeons, no doubt from the absence of the competition which pigeon-fanciers have so long exercised. One of the most curious effects of domestication in the duck, however, is, that whereas the wild mallard is not only strictly monogamous, but, as Waterton believed, a most faithful husband, remaining paired for life, the civilized drake is notoriously polygamous.
Very nearly allied to the common wild duck are a considerable number of species found in various parts of the world in which there is little difference of plumage between the sexes—both being of a dusky hue—such as Anas obscura, the commonest river-duck of America, A. superciliosa of Australia, A. poecilorhyncha of India, A. melleri of Madagascar, A. xanthorhyncha of South Africa, and some others.
Among the other genera of Anatinae, we must content ourselves by saying that both in Europe and in North America there are the groups represented by the shoveller, garganey, gadwall, teal, pintail and widgeon—each of which, according to some systematists, is the type of a distinct genus. Then there is the group Aix, with its beautiful representatives the wood-duck (A. sponsa) in America and the mandarin-duck (A. galericulata) in Eastern Asia. Besides there are the sheldrakes (Tadorna), confined to the Old World and remarkably developed in the Australian Region; the musk-duck (Cairina) of South America, which is often domesticated and in that condition will produce hybrids with the common duck; and finally the tree-ducks (Dendrocygna), which are almost limited to the tropics. (For duck-shooting, see Shooting.) (A. N.)
2 (Probably derived from the Dutch doeck, a coarse linen material, cf. Ger. Tuch, cloth), a plain fabric made originally from tow yarns. The cloth is lighter than canvas or sailcloth, and differs from these in that it is almost invariably single in both warp and weft. The term is also used to indicate the colour obtained at a certain stage in the bleaching of flax yarns; it is a colour between half-white and cream, and this fact may have something to do with the name. Most of the flax ducks (tow yarns) appear in this colour, although quantities are bleached or dyed. Some of the ducks are made from long flax, dyed black, and used for kit-bags, while the dyed tow ducks may be used for inferior purposes. The fabric, in its various qualities and colours, is used for an enormous variety of purposes, including tents, wagon and motor hoods, light sails, clothing, workmen’s overalls, bicycle tubes, mail and other bags and pocketings. Russian duck is a fine white linen canvas.
DUCKING and CUCKING STOOLS, chairs used for the punishment of scolds, witches and prostitutes in bygone days. The two have been generally confused, but are quite distinct. The earlier, the Cucking-stool[2] or Stool of Repentance, is of very ancient date, and was used by the Saxons, who called it the Scealding or Scolding Stool. It is mentioned in Domesday Book as in use at Chester, being called cathedra stercoris, a name which seems to confirm the first of the derivations suggested in the footnote below. Seated on this stool the woman, her head and feet bare, was publicly exposed at her door or paraded through the streets amidst the jeers of the crowd. The Cucking-stool was used for both sexes, and was specially the punishment for dishonest brewers and bakers. Its use in the case of scolding women declined on the introduction in the middle of the 16th century of the Scold’s Bridle (see Branks), and it disappears on the introduction a little later of the Ducking-stool. The earliest record of the use of this latter is towards the beginning of the 17th century. It was a strongly made wooden armchair (the surviving specimens are of oak) in which the culprit was seated, an iron band being placed around her so that she should not fall out during her immersion. Usually the chair was fastened to a long wooden beam fixed as a seesaw on the edge of a pond or river. Sometimes, however, the Ducking-stool was not a fixture but was mounted on a pair of wooden wheels so that it could be wheeled through the streets, and at the river-edge was hung by a chain from the end of a beam. In sentencing a woman the magistrates ordered the number of duckings she should have. Yet another type of Ducking-stool was called a tumbrel. It was a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to the axles. This was pushed into the pond and then the shafts released, thus tipping the chair up backwards. Sometimes the punishment proved fatal, the unfortunate woman dying of shock. Ducking-stools were used in England as late as the beginning of the 19th century. The last recorded cases are those of a Mrs Ganble at Plymouth (1808); of Jenny Pipes, “a notorious scold” (1809), and Sarah Leeke (1817), both of Leominster. In the last case the water in the pond was so low that the victim was merely wheeled round the town in the chair.
See W. Andrews, Old Time Punishments (Hull, 1890); A. M. Earle, Curious Punishments of Bygone Days (Chicago, 1896); W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore (London, 1905); Llewellynn Jewitt in The Reliquary, vols. i. and ii. (1860–1862); Gentleman’s Magazine for 1732.
DUCKWEED, the common botanical name for species of Lemna which form a green coating on fresh-water ponds and ditches. The plants are of extremely simple structure and are the smallest and least differentiated of flowering plants. They consist of a so-called “frond”—a flattened green more or less oval structure which emits branches similar to itself from lateral pockets at or near the base. From the under surface a root with a well-developed sheath grows downwards into the water. The flowers, which are rarely found in Britain, are
- ↑ When ducks breed in trees, the precise way in which the young get to the ground is still a matter of uncertainty. The mother is supposed to convey them in her bill, and most likely does so, but they are often simply allowed to fall.
- ↑ Probably from “cuck,” to void excrement; but variously connected with Fr. coquin, rascal.
