314 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



The game-ducks when at sea I have always found fivefold 

 more wary than the regular sea-ducks, and have never yet 

 shot, or seen shot, a single mallard or wigeon from a 

 sailing-boat at sea. Often as I have run down on them, 

 merely for the pleasure of seeing, say, a thousand ducks 

 spring at once from the sea, I never knew them allow a 

 boat to approach within shot, or, for that matter, within a 

 quarter of a mile. 



Next in importance to the two above-described ducks 

 is the teal. As early as August some appear on the salt 

 water, and during September and early October they 

 are plentiful enough, and right glad is the puntsman to 

 welcome them. No sight is more gratifying than a flight 

 of teal, no sound more pleasing to his ear than their low 

 clucking note ; for, though usually unsuspicious of a punt, 

 no fowl in existence is smarter or more game-like in 

 springing, or requires more care and judgment to secure 

 the most effective shot. But in the month of October 

 all these teal have passed on further south, or perhaps 

 inland, and rarely are any seen on the salt water, even in 

 mild seasons, after that date, until their return north- 

 wards in March. They are essentially lovers of fresh 

 water ; after punting for a week in January without see- 

 ing a single teal, I have sprung half-a-dozen of them from 

 a small fresh-water burn within a few hundred yards of 

 the salt-slakes. Like all wildfowl that prefer fresh water 

 and its productions, teal are impatient of cold, and of 

 the risks of having their feeding-grounds closed by 

 ice. Hence they move southward to avoid such 

 dangers. Yet once, during the intensely severe frost 

 early in 1881, I fell in with six of these birds — all 

 drakes — four of which were secured with a shot from a 

 shoulder-gun. 



