CHAPTER LXXII 



TWO TEAL 



Teal dislike the open water, and love straggly reed-beds 

 and stuff growing near plantations abutting on the Broads. 

 They are the shyest of birds, especially if they have once 

 been near a decoy-pipe, starting up when frightened, the 

 leader whistling — which shows them to be wide-awake and 

 on the alert — the others juggling, something after the manner 

 of a snipe. As they grow more accustomed to the situation, 

 the leader's whistle becomes shorter and less frequent, finally 

 dying away to a long soft whistle as they re-alight in the stuff. 

 If feeding in large numbers, as they do in winter on the less 

 secluded broads, and you once again disturb them, they fly up 

 in parties, the leader of each party whistling in alarm as they 

 fly round and round their feeding-place. And should you 

 not disappear, they will finally fly high into the air, and 

 disappear swiftly in the grey atmosphere ; for the teal is a 

 very swift flier, as the flighters know, for, as they say, " the 

 teal come past you fit to take your head off." And unless 

 the flight-shooter has light enough to discern them coming, 

 as they fly low and swiftly, he seldom has time to pre- 

 pare for them, and they go whizzing past like cannon-shot, 

 leaving the gunner swearing. 



When the Broads are laid and the marshes snow-fields, 

 the teal go away, and do not reappear till the frost has 

 gone. But they are plentiful in winter, when the water is 

 open — most, if not all, of these winter teal being migrants, 

 coming across the sea on a nor'-west wind, like most other 

 wild-fowl. The}^ come in large flocks. One gunner tells 



