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.VESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



Ohxervationx. — The Teal is a pretty Little Duck, especially the male 

 of the Chestnut-breasted variety, with its rich, reddish-brown coat, 

 enhanced by the beautifid deep bronzy-green head and neck, and rubv- 

 coloui'ed eyes. This bird is known to the shooter as the Mountain Teal. 



The Chestnut-breasted Teal (N . castaneum), although it is sup- 

 posed to range throughout Australia, is, for the most part, a southern 

 bird,* and it is partial to watei-s, salt and fresh, on or near the coast^ — 

 such as it finds in Gippsland, on some of the islands in Bass Strait, and 

 in Tasmania. Five Chestnut Teal were procured on King Island by 

 the Field Naturalists' Club expedition in November, 1887, the males 

 being in full nuptial plumage. The birds took readily to the sea, not- 

 withstanding their fresh water proclivities. 



I like reading old-time memories, especially when birds are men- 

 tioned. Here is one by Mr. Isaac Batey, of Sunbun'. taken from 

 " Tlie Australasian " : — " The lake-like swamps on the Melbourne side of 

 Melton were a great Teal shooting groimd, and talking of them recalls 

 my recollections of the year 1853. The autumn and early part of the 

 winter of that season were unusually wet, cold, and stonny, which had 

 the effect of causing Ducks of nearly even* known species to locate 

 themselves in myriads all over this quarter. Tlic creeks, cot alone, 

 were fidl of them, but the forest and the plain, wherever there was a 

 pool of water, had its bunch of Teal or other Ducks. S W. and E. Page 

 pioneers of 1835, told us that they never remembered such an irruption 

 of water fowl in their eighteen years' experience." I may be allowed 

 to add, never has there been such an exceptional number of Ducks in 

 the locality since. Two Teals' nests came under Gould's observation, 

 one in December, 1839, when he flushed a female of the Chestnut- 

 breasted variety from a nest among herbage on Green Island, 

 D'Entrecasteaux's Channel ; the other, probably that of a Grey Teal, 

 was found in October, 1840, in a hole near the top of a large tree 

 growing on the flats about Aberdeen, on the Upper Himter. New South 

 Wales. In both instances the eggs were nine in number. It is some- 

 what strange that Gould omitted to describe them. 



The eggs of the Chestnut variety, or so-called Mountain Teal, I first 

 described in 1882, were secured from a clutch from which a bird in 

 full nuptial plumage was flushed. 



Mr. D. Le Souef found Chestnut-breasted Teal niunerous at Malla- 

 coota Inlet, where he noticed them breeding in November, 1895. 



The breeding season lasts from June to December. With regard 

 to second broods, Mr. Wm. Morton, Mt. Wallace (Vict."), paid particular 

 attention to a bird in his vicinity. She hatched her fii-st brood about 

 tho 14th August, and laid again about the 7tli October. Tiu^ fii-st brood 

 was able to flv about the 21st October. 



' However Mr. T. Carler has noticed it as far north as the North-west Cape, 

 where he found a bird with younp;, apparently reared in the salt water among 

 mangroves. Date, July, igoo 



