106 BULLETIN 12G, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the other surface-feeding ducks. The plumage ai)pears first on the 

 flanks and scapulars. 



In the Juvenal or first plumage the sexes are practically alike, ex- 

 cept that in the young female the colors in the wing are somewhat 

 duller, the pattern being the same in both sexes, and there is less 

 spotting on the belly. But changes soon take place and the advance 

 toward maturity is rapid. The young male becomes lighter below 

 and the red plumage of the head appears in October; by December 

 the young bird has become practically indistinguishable from the 

 adult. 



The adult male sometimes begins to molt into the eclipse plumage 

 in June, usually in July, and in August this plumage is complete, all 

 the contour feathers and scapulars having been molted; the flight 

 feathers are renewed in August and the second complete molt of the 

 contour feathers begins late in September and is completed in October 

 or November. In the eclipse plumage old and young males and 

 females look very much ahke, but old males generally have fewer, 

 more clearly defined, and well rounded spots below and old females 

 are usually uniformly and thickly mottled on the under parts. 



Food. — The green-winged teal enjoys a varied diet which it obtains 

 in various ways in different parts of its habitat. In its summer home 

 it loves to dabble in the shallow water about the edges of the sloughs, 

 ponds, and creeks, with its body half immersed, its feet kicking in the 

 air and its bill probing in the mud for aquatic insects or their larvae, 

 worms, small moUusks and crustaceans, or even tadpoles. In such 

 places it also feeds on the soft parts of various water plants and their 

 seeds. In harvest time it wanders to the grain fields and picks up 

 the fallen grains of corn, wheat, oats, barley, and buclvv\4ieat, where 

 it also feeds on various other seeds, grasses, and vegetable matter. 

 At this season and in the winter, when it lives in the southern rice 

 fields feasting on the fallen harvest, it grows very fat and its flesh 

 becomes very desirable for the table, equaling the finest of the ducks. 

 It ordinarily feeds during the daytime, but in sections where it is 

 much disturbed it is forced to become a night feeder. As it is active 

 on land and can walk or run long distances, it often resorts to the 

 dry uplands and woods to feed on berries, wild grapes, chestnuts, 

 acorns, and other nuts, all of which help to improve the flavor of its 

 flesh and make it a much sought game bird. 



Neltje Blanchan (1898) says: 



Nothing about its rauknesa of flavor when it has gorged on putrid salmon lying in 

 the creeks in the northwest, or the maggots they contain, ever creeps into the books; 

 and yet this dainty little exquisite of the southern rice fields has a voracious appetite 

 worthy of the mallard around the salmon canneries of British Columbia, where the 

 stench from a flock of teals passing overhead betrays a taste for high living no other 

 gourmand can approve. When clean fed, however, there is no better table duck 

 than a teal. 



