THE TEAL AND GARGANEY 209 



They seem to know that they are in great request, 

 and for that reason they feed where there is not the 

 sHghtest chance of getting at them. It is not 

 pleasant to look at — a large spring of one hundred, 

 or it may be nearly two hundred Teal, without any 

 chance of placing even one bird in your pocket, much 

 less a couple. Yet such is very frequently the case. 

 It would be all right if you could only get among 

 them, but that is just what you are not able to do. 

 Moreover, they are very quick on the wing, spring- 

 ing up and off in a very snipe-like fashion. If you 

 do not get them at once, they are, as the saying is, 

 "round the corner and in the next street" quick. 

 A fair snipe shot will generally account for Teal 

 when the chance offers, but a few couples — got by 

 patiently trying up the gripes, and cautiously getting 

 on the edges of covered-in pools and splashes — are 

 a mere nothing. 



Apart from their value as table birds, there is 

 another point to be regarded, and that is the value 

 of Teal from a bird-preserving view. Old, full- 

 feathered drake Teals are by no means numerous, 

 and before I left the moist flats, a Teal drake in all 

 the pride of full plumage would fetch more at the 

 bird preserver's than elsewhere. Any number of 

 the birds can be had in all stages of plumage ; but 

 out of fifty you may not be able to pick out a drake 

 in perfect feather. They are delicate birds, and it 

 does not take much to kill them. If they are hit, a 

 snipe charge will stop th(;m. 



In hard weather they visit the tide, not from 



