DUCKS 



125 



pulls over it the blanket of gray down which 

 she has plucked from her breast as a lining, en- 

 tirely concealing the eggs, and making the ne t 

 practically invisible. After returning she sits 

 very close, allowing herself almost to be stepped 

 on before she will leave. Confident of her 

 powers of concealment, she seem;, more apt than 

 most other Ducks, except perhaps the other 

 Teals, the Pintail, and the Shoveller, to nest 

 carelessly near the haunts of man, in the prairie 

 regions of her choice. The nests of these con- 

 fiding Duck mothers may be placed beside a path 

 or road, in a cattle-yard, or near a house. One 

 summer I was at a hunter's camp just back from 

 Lake Manitoba, and many times a day we fol- 

 lowed a little path to the water. One day a boy 

 walked a little off the trail, and came tearing 

 back to camp to report having flushed a Duck 

 from her eggs. It was a nest of this species, 

 only a dozen feet from the path, in the prairie 

 grass. 



The Blue-wing prefers little shallow marshv 

 pools, or meadows and bogs, tn the larger open 

 waters. Its food in the ponds includes much 

 vegetable matter, seeds, grasses, pondweeds, etc. 



It also at times devours snails, tadpoles, and 

 manv insects. 



Photo by H. K. Jut- Courtesy ul Uuting Pub. Co. 



NEST OF BLUE-WINGED TEAL 



Formerly in North Dakota I used to see it. 

 often with the Shoveller or the Pintail, almost 

 wherever there was the merest puddle by the 

 roadside, in spring and early summer. Let us 

 hope that it may continue abundant and intimate 

 on the western farm. Herbert K. Job. 



CINNAMON TEAL 

 Querquedula cyanoptera ( [ 'ieiUot ] 



.\. O. U. Number 141 



Other Names. — South .American Teal ; Red-breasted 

 Teal- 

 General Description. — Length. 17 inches. Males 

 have the head and under parts chestnut, and the upper 

 parts brown. Females are dark brown above, variegated 

 with lighter, and whitish below, mottled with brown. 



Color. — Adult M,\le: Head, neck, and entire 

 under parts, rich purplish chestnut, browner on crown 

 and chin, blackening on center of abdomen; under tail- 

 coverts, dark brown; fore-back, a lighter shade of same 

 color crossed by brown curved bars ; lower back and 

 rump, greenish-brown, the feathers edged with paler ; 

 wing-coverts, cobalt-blue ; some of the shoulder feathers, 

 blue on outer web with a yellow center stripe ; others, 

 dark green, also with center stripe; speculum, bright 

 green framed between white tips of greater coverts and 

 white ends of secondaries; bill, dusky; feet, orange. 



webs, darker; iris, brown, -\dult Fe.m.^le: Quite 

 similar to female Blue-winged Teal, but larger with 

 longer bill and under parts with some tinges of the 

 chestnut color of the male; bill, dusky, paler below 

 and along edges ; feet dull yellowish ; iris, brown. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: In tall grass, usually near 

 water; very well constructed of woven grass and lined 

 with feathers and down. Eggs: g to 13. creamy-white. 



Distribution. — North and South America ; breeds in 

 North .America from southern British Columbia, south- 

 western Alberta, Wyoming, and Western Kansas south 

 to northern Lower California, southern New Me.xico 

 and southwestern Texas ; winters from southern Cali- 

 fornia, central New Mexico and southern Texas south 

 to southern Lower California and central Me.xico ; rare 

 east of the louth meridan ; occurs in South America 

 from Peru and Brazil south to the Falkland Islands. 



There are several curious facts concerning the United States apparently was in Louisiana near 



Cinnamon Teal. It seems to have been first the town of Opelousas in 1849, but strangely 



described from a specimen taken in the far- enough it is now seldom seen in that State. At 



away Straits of Magellan early in the 19th about that time, indeed, it appeared frequently 



century. Its first recorded appearance in the in the lower valley of the Mississippi, but its 



