Rouen duck: very fine flesh, tinged with red, with a special flavour due to the fact that the bird is smothered, not bled, so that the blood remains in the muscles.

Nantes duck: (or Challans duck - after the name of the marshland where it is raise in a semi-wild state.) Smaller but fatter, with fine delicately flavoured flesh.

Barbary duck: raised in the wild; firmer and leaner flesh with a slightly musky flavour.

Pekin duck now rare since it is too small for commercial purposes; very fine and delicate flesh.

In French cookery, the term canard applies to birds two to four months old. Caneton (duckling) is used for younger birds and in grande cuisine. The female duck (cane) is smaller but plumper than the drake; it is prefered for roasts because its meat is finer and tastier. A female duckling is called a canette.

Duck's eggs, which have a greenish white shell and weigh 80 to 100 g (3 to 4 1/2 oz), are very popular in the Far East. Because they often carry germs, duck's eggs should only be eaten cooked.

Wild duck The most common species in France is the mallard (colvert). It is also the largest and has exquisite flesh. The male has green and grey plumage with a touch of brown and white. The female is brown. Practically sedentary from October to March, the mallard migrates south only in very cold weather.

Other wild ducks that are well known in gastronomy include the shoveler duck (souchet), which has a spatulate beak, the gadwall (chipeau), which is grey and white with a brown border on the wings (in eastern france), the baldpate (sifleur), which is a smaller, coastal species and the pintail (pilet), which is less highly regarded. The sheldrake (tadorne) and the merganser (harle) are now protected species.