100 BULLETIN 126. UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, 



teal, which were usually common and sometimes abundant among the 

 western and central islands. With them we sometimes found red- 

 breasted mergansers and a few mallards and scaup ducks, which 

 were flushed from the streams or seen swimming on the little ponds. 



The down in the nest of the European teal is very small and very 

 dark colored, dark " hair brown "or " clove brown " with large con- 

 spicuous white centers. The breast feathers in the nest are small, 

 M'ith dusky centers and buff tips. 



Eggs. — This teal has been known to lay as many as 16 eggs, but 

 the usual numbers run from 8 to 12. In shape and color they are 

 indistinguishable from eggs of the green- winged teal. The measure- 

 ments of 100 eggs, given in Witherby's Handbook (1920), average 

 44.6 by 32.6 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 49.5 by 34, 47.6 by 35.2, 41 by 32.9 and 42.2 by 31.2 milhmeters. 



Young.— The period of incubation is short, 22 days, and is per- 

 formed by the female alone. The young teal have many enemies to 

 contend with during their early existence, among wliich certain in- 

 dividuals of the brown-headed gull, which seem to develop murderous 

 instincts, are most destructive, as the following striking instance 

 related by Mr. Millais (1902) will illustrate: 



About the year 1884, the brown-headed gulls, formerly represented by a couple of 

 hundred pairs, began to increase on the bog at Murthly to an alarming extent. Their 

 nests were everywhere in the reed txifts, and about this time the teal began to 

 decrease. James Conaclier, the keeper of the Moss, at once put it down to the gulls, 

 who, he said, killed the ducklings as soon as their mothers brought them down to the 

 bog, and said, moreover, that we should have no quantity of duck until a war of gull 

 extermination had taken place. On talking the matter over with the head keeper, 

 one James Keay, a very superior and observant man, he said that he had noticed that 

 all the young teal that were killed lay dead near two places, and in an area of 30 

 yards square. This seemed plainly to point to the work of individuals, and on sub- 

 sequently watching the places Keay saw a gull that had a nest close by actually seize 

 a young teal, lift it into the air for a moment, and drop it dead. This gull and ita 

 partner were shot, and no more young ducks were found dead in that vicinity during 

 the season; but the next year the gulls of certain nests were found to have again 

 started the murders, and they were marked down and shot, after which no more ducks 

 were killed for some time, and the teal increased greath% All the young teal killed 

 by the gulls were put to death in the same way, the skulls were nipped and crushed 

 at the back, and they were not touched again. In June, 1890, another pair began 

 duck killing, and near the nest of these birds Keay found the remains of Ifi teal, 3 

 tufted ducks, and 2 mallard nestlings. 



Plumages. — The downy young and the sequence of molts and 

 plumages are so similar to those of our American bird that it seems 

 unnecessary to repeat them here. 



Food. — Bewick (1847), says of its food: 



Buffon remarks that the young are seen in clusters on the pools, feeding on cresses, 

 wild chervil, etc., and no doubt, as they grow up, they feed like other ducks, on the 

 various seeds, grasses, and water plants, as well as upon the smaller animated beings 

 with which all stagnant waters are bo abundantly stored. 



