LIVE birds at shows were a nineteenth century innovation. Birds became part of the great exhibitions, part and parcel of the showcase of the imperial world. Game cocks were removed from the cockpit (cockfighting became illegal in 1849) and, although cold carcasses of poultry were still on show, so too were the live, feathered birds.

In waterfowl, a flurry of new imports came to the UK. There was the Rouen from France, the Black East Indian (from who knows where), the fluffy Sebastopol from the Crimea, and the African from Hong Kong. Most of these new arrivals were documented in some way but not, so it seems, the Call. Even Charles Darwin, who questioned duck keepers and ornithologists about varieties of birds, found no answer on its origin.

Perhaps the first English mention of the Call is Saul Dixon's account in 1848: 'A much smaller race of White Ducks is imported from Holland; their chief merit, indicated by the title of Call Duck, consists in their incessant loquacity. They are useful only to the proprietors of extensive secluded waters, as enticers of passing wild birds to alight to join their society. But in Norfolk, where the management of decoys is as well understood as anywhere, the trained Decoy Ducks are selected to resemble the mallard male and female as nearly as possible. Both systems are found to answer; the wild-coloured traitors are found to arouse no suspicion, while the conspicuous Dutchmen excite fatal attention and curiosity'.

And that is it. There is no evidence of any importer or source.

Wingfield and Johnson (1854) were rather more forthcoming about the duck: 'One only of the Fowler's devices and companions comes within our limits, and that is the garrulous little Call Duck, which also occasionally passes under the name of the "Italian wild duck" . . . We at once notice in these birds the possession of many points of difference between them and any of our domesticated Ducks; nor is there any closer connexion visible to us when the wild Duck itself is brought into comparison with this diminutive breed Voice, plumage, habits and general character, all concur to distinguish it from the others. An application to a friend, a skilful naturalist, elicited an opinion in accordance with our own, as also a letter from Mr Yarrell on this subject . . . This letter says "With respect to the Call Duck, I may premise that I have never examined the inside of a male, nor have I ever met a trivial name for it. It is not considered as a species, nor is it referred to as a variety in any of the works on European ornithology. It is true French, and best known by the name of the French Call Duck".' French, Italian, Dutch or Decoy? Even in the 1850s people did not seem to be sure. However, the Call duck is now firmly believed to be Dutch. Certainly by 1902 Harrison Weir referred to the Calls he illustrated as Dutch, and the birds which made the modern exhibition Call in the UK were imported from Holland around 1960.

Darwin

Charles Darwin was clearly fascinated by the Call and other breeds of domesticated duck. In his correspondence with duck keepers such as Mr Fox, he made it clear that he should like to obtain skeletons for measurement and comparison with wild mallard and other distinctive domesticated breeds. The results were published in 'The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication', 1868.

This is what he found in the Call duck specimens from Mr Fox and Mr Baker: Osteological Characters - The skulls of the several breeds differ from each other and from the skull of the wild duck in very little except in the proportional length and curvature of the premaxillaries. These latter bones in the Call-duck are short, and a line drawn from their extremities to the summit of the skull is nearly straight, instead of being concave as in the common duck; so that the skull resembles that of a small goose.

Vertebrae and Ribs. - In two skeletons of the Call-duck there were fifteen cervical and nine dorsal vertebrae; in a third skeleton small ribs were attached to the so-called fifteenth cervical vertebra, making ten pairs of ribs; but these ten ribs do not correspond, or arise from the same vertebrae, with the ten in the above-mentioned Labrador duck. In the Call-duck, which had small ribs attached to the fifteenth cervical vertebra, the haemal spines of the thirteenth and fourteenth (cervical) and of the seventeenth (dorsal) vertebrae corresponded with the spines on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and eighteenth vertebrae of the wild duck: so that each of these vertebrae had acquired a structure proper to one posterior to it in position. In the twelfth cervical vertebra of this same Call-duck the two branches of the haemal spine stand much closer together than in the wild duck (A), and the descending haemal processes are much shortened.

On the effects of the increased and decreased Use of the Limbs - In all the breeds the bones of the wing (measured separately after having been cleaned) relatively to those of the leg have become slightly shortened, in comparison with the same bones in the wild duck . . . The reduction is least in the Call-duck, which has the power and the habit of frequently flying. . . .

We see that the leg-bones in each case have increased in actual weight. It might have been expected that, with the increased or decreased weight of the entire skeleton, the leg-bones would have become proportionally heavier or lighter; but their greater weight in all the breeds relatively to the other bones can be accounted for only by these domestic birds having used their legs in walking and standing much more than the wild, for they never fly, and the more artificial breeds rarely swim . . .

We see, with the exception of one case, a plain reduction in the weight of the bones of the wing, and this no doubt has resulted from their lessened use. The one exceptional case, namely, in one of the Call-ducks, is in truth no exception, for this bird was constantly in the habit of flying about; and I have seen it day after day rise from my grounds, and fly for a long time in circles of more than a mile in diameter. In this Call-duck there is not only no decrease, but an actual increase in the weight of the wing-bones relatively to those of the wild duck; and this probably is consequent on the remarkable lightness and thinness of all the bones of the skeleton.

So, those Calls were structurally different from other ducks. Their beaks were noticeably shorter, their wings more practised at flying, and the cervical vertebrae a different shape. Yet this was determined by selection for the tiny, bathtub-duck shape because the Call is the same species as all the other domesticated ducks arising from the wild mallard.

Modern Calls

The Call ducks illustrated in both Tegetmeir (1867) and Lewis Wright were little ducks. But those drawn by Harrison Weir (1902) had taken a quantum leap. That quantum leap wasn't just type, it was colour.

Weir's Dutch Calls were '. . . charming in both form and size, and the white, when really good, with full Dutch-boat shaped bodies, short necks, and rounded heads with short bills of deep bright orange tint, and standing on short equally brightly coloured shanks and feet have a lovely appearance . . .' The birds were also producing what he called 'blues and buffs', but this was perhaps the first - and last - reference to unusual colours in the UK until the 1960s.

The Call did disappear from readily available literature. They were occasionally advertised in Feathered World, often to set as decoys on ponds. Reginald Appleyard kept and described them in white and mallard in the 1930s, but they were rarely exhibited. They almost disappeared for over half a century, but then were set to make a come back in a big way.