LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 117 



ing may prove to be merely a hi<j;h stage of plumage, assumed by the 

 most vigorous birds. Mr. Arthur's bird died soon after assuming the 

 normal spring plumage, which may mean that waning vitality was 

 the cause of its losing its white adornment. 



Food. -The blue-winged teal is decidely a surface feeder; it feeds in 

 shallow, muddy pond holes overgrown with aquatic vegetation, about 

 the reedy shores of lakes and sloughs, and even in wet meadows, par- 

 ticularl}' along the banks of grassy ditches and creeks, where it is 

 usually concealed from view; its food is usually obtained on the sur- 

 face or within reach of its submerged head and neck, but occasionally 

 its tail is tipped up and its body half immersed. Its food consists 

 largely of tender aquatic plants. 



In the fall it visits the grain fields occasionally and eats some 

 wheat and barley. It eats wild rice wherever it can find it and, on 

 its winter feeding grounds, it hves and feasts in the extensive rice 

 fields. Its animal food includes tadpoles, worms, snails, and other 

 small mollusks, water insects, and larvae. Dr. J. C. Phillips (1911) 

 found that the stomachs of birds shot in Massachusetts contained 

 "many young snails, various insects, and seeds of burreed, pondweeds, 

 smartweed, and various sedges and grasses. Animal matter, 88 per 

 cent; vegetable, 12 per cent; mineral, 8 per cent." 



Mr. Douglas C. Mabbott (1920) sums up the food of the blue-winged 

 teal as follows: 



About seven-tenths (70.53 per cent) of the blue-winged teal's food consists of 

 vegetable matter. Of this about three-fourths is included in four families of plants. 

 Sedges (Cyperaceae), with 18.79 per cent; pondweeds (Naiadaceae), 12.6; grasses 

 (Gramineae), 12. 2G; and the smartweede (Polygonaceae), 8.22. The remainder of the 

 plant food is made up of algae, 2.95 per cent; water lilies (Nymphaeaceae), 1.37; rice 

 and corn, 0.98; water milfoils (Haloragidacae), 0.71 : bur reeds (Sparganiaccae), 0.38; 

 madder family (Rubiaceac), (1.35; and miscellaneous 11.92 per cent. 



Animal matter constitutes 29.47 per cent of the total food of the blue-winged teal, 

 which is more than three times the percentage of animal food eaten by the green- 

 wing. Over half of this ( 16.82 per cent) is mollusl^s, the remainder being made up of 

 insects, 10.41 per cent, crustaceans, 1.93, and miscellaneoiis, 0.31 per cent. 



Behavior. — From the water the blue-winged teal springs into the 

 air with surprising agihty, and when under way is one of the swiftest 

 of the ducks in flight; it has ])een credited Avith attaining a speed of 

 90, 100, or even 130 miles an hour, but probably these speeds are all 

 overestimated, as there is very little accurate data on which to base 

 an estimate. Doctor Yorke (1899) says: " 'J'hey travel at the rate of 

 about 130 miles an hour, exceeded only by the green-winged teal." 

 This seems incredible. 



Audubon (1840) says: 



The flight of the blue-winged teal is extremely rapid and well sustained. Indeed, 

 I have thought that, when traveling, it passes through the air with a speed equal to 

 that of the passenger pigeon. When flying in flocks in clear sunny weather, the blue 



