564 THE FE.\T11EUED TRIBES. 



less with white; t lie. head is crested, and a scarlet fleshy space surrounds the eye, 

 continued from scarlet caruncles or wattles on the beak. The feathers are larger, softer, 

 and more lax than in the ordinary duck, and less adapted for aquatic habits. This bird 

 exhales a somewhat powerful odour of musk. 



THE TEAI..* 



This is one of the smallest and also of the most beautiful of British ducks. It is 

 distributed over a great part of Europe, Northern Asia, and America. Multitudes every 

 winter \'isit the fens of Britain, breeding, but not numerously, in the marshes of its 

 northern counties. " Our indigenous broods," says Mr. Selby, "I am inclined to think, 

 seldom quit the immediate neighbourhood of the place in which they were bred, as I 

 have repeatedly observed them to haunt the same district from the time of their hatching 

 till they separated and paired, on the approach of the following spring." The nest is 

 formed of a large mass of decayed vegetables, with a lining of down and feathers, and 

 contains eight or ten eggs. "Wild ducks and teal breed also," says Mr. Jesse, "amongst 

 the heather iu Woolmer Forest, and generally in tlie highest grounds. One of the 

 woodmen, who has a cottage in the forest, informed me that he had found a teal's nest, 

 with nine eggs in it, in a situation of this descriiitiou." 



Of the ducks we have now spoken ; wc turn, therefore, to their associates, — the 

 Geese. 



* QucTnuodiik Erccea. 



