BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 45 



17th of March. Their distribution for breeding, becomes con- 

 siderably restricted, but varies in the choice of localities in suc- 

 cessive years. In the one first alluded to their nests were found 

 in several places in Hennepin county, bat in the next I could 

 find or hear of none. In later years I found them breeding 

 along the Minnesota bottoms and in the marshes along Min- 

 nehaha creek, which constitutes the outlet of Lake Minne- 

 tonka. 



Mr. Washburn found them "rather common, and breeding 

 at Otter Tail and Mille Lacs," in 1885. The nest is formed of 

 weeds, sedges and grasses, lined with considerable down. 

 Eight to ten eggs are usually laid, of a dingy creamy-white 

 color. It is almost a strictly vegetable feeder, wandering 

 some considerable distance from the water in search of ber- 

 ries, nuts, wild rice, etc. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Head, and neck all around, chestnut; chin black; forehead 

 dusky; region round the eye continued along the side of the 

 head as a broad stripe, rich green, passing into a bluish-black 

 patch across the nape; under parts white, the feathers of the 

 jugulum with rounded black spots; lower portion of neck all 

 around, sides of breast and body, long feathers of flanks and 

 scajDulars, beautifully and finely banded closely with black 

 and grayish- white; outer webs of some scapulars, and of outer 

 secondaries black, the latter tipped with white; speculum 

 broad and rich green; wing coverts plain grayish-brown, the 

 greater coverts tipped with buff; a white crescent in front of 

 the bend of the wing; crissum black, with a triangular patch 

 of buffy white on each side; lower portion of the green stripe 

 on each side of the head blackish, with a dull edge of whitish 

 below; iris brown. Sometimes the under parts are strongly 

 tinged with ferruginous brown. 



Length, 14; wing, 7.40; tarsus. 1.15; commissure, 1.68. 



Habitat, North America generally. 



ANAS DISCORS L. (140.) 



BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 



No other species of the Ducks is so cautious upon its arrival 

 as the Blue- winged Teal, a trait by which the old hunter deter- 

 mines its identity at once. In parties of eight to ten or a dozen, 

 they will circle around, descending again and again only to 

 rise again and go further up, or lower down the stream, to 

 repeat the same demonstrations of indecision, many times over, 

 and just as unexpectedly they suddenly drop out of sight 



