What are the horse marines?

If your big brother tells you that he has enlisted in the horse marines, you just tell him hats kidding. There is no such branch of the armed services and never was.

From its name, you would expect the horse marines to be a kind of sea going cavalry. Then you wonder what use in the world would horsemen be at sea, And that is supposed to be the joke. They would be no use at all.

The expression, however, is sometimes used to explain a mixed up state of affairs. A sailor, given the job of patrolling the shore on horseback might call himself a horse marine. Or a company of calvarymen, being transported by sea, might be called horse marines. But all this would be far from serious.

Was the domestic duck once wild?

All our domestic animals were once wild. Our lily white farm¬yard ducks are descended from the taffy colored, long  distance flying mallard ducks.