128 BULLETIN 126, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



tion showed that although the heart itself had not been pierced, the neighboring 

 blood veasela had and the blood was practically withdrawn. 



This species, like many others, has always been able to cope suc- 

 cessfully with its natural enemies, but against its chief enemy, man, 

 it is powerless. The encroachments of civilization and agriculture 

 have driven it from many of its former haunts by draining, cultivat- 

 ing, or destroying its breeding grounds, its shelters, and its feeding 

 places. Many nests are destroyed and some birds are killed by mow- 

 ing the fields in which it breeds. In the San Joaquin Valley, in 1914, 

 I was disappointed to find that during dry season the land company, 

 which controls vast areas, had drawn off the water for irrigation 

 purposes and left its wonderful sloughs dry and almost duckless. 

 But the worst enemy of all ducks is the unrestrained market hunter, 

 of which Mr, Vernon Bailey (1902) says: 



The young are protected in the tule cover until old enough to fly, but they have 

 many enemies. The prowling coyote dines with equal relish on a nest full of eggs or 

 an unwary duck, and there are hawks by day and owls by night. The teals could 

 hold their own against these old time enemies, however, but a new danger has come 

 to them in the form of the unrestrained market hunter. He goes to the breeding 

 ground just before the young can fly and while the old ducks are molting and equally 

 helpless, and day after day loads his wagon with them for the train. This whole- 

 sale slaughter has gone on until some of the breeding grounds have been woefully 

 thinned not only of teal, but of other ducks. Without speedy and strenuous efforts 

 to procure and enforce protective laws, many species of ducks that breed principally 

 within our limits will soon be exterminated. 



Fall. — As the cinnamon teal winters as far north as southern Cali- 

 fornia and central New Mexico, the fall migration is short and merely 

 means withdrawal from the northern part of its breeding range, during 

 September and the first half of October. During the short southward 

 flight, it flocks in large numbers into all suitable sloughs and lakes, 

 where it is eagerly sought by the sportsmen and is fully as popular 

 as its eastern relative, the bluewing, which it closely resembles in all 

 its habits. I am tempted to quote in full the attractive and vivid 

 picture which Doctor Coues (1874) has drawn of this bird in its fall 

 and winter haunts. He writes: 



I have in mind a picture of the headwaters of the Rio Verde, in November, just 

 before winter had fairly set in, although frosts had already touched the foliage and 

 dressed every tree and bush in gorgeous colors. The atmosphere showed a faint 

 yellow haze, and was heavy with odors— souvenirs of departing flowers. The sap of 

 the trees coursed sluggishly, no longer lending elastic vigor to the limbs, that now 

 cracked and broke when forced apart; the leaves loosened their hold, for want of the 

 same mysterious tie, and fell in showers where the quail rustled over their withering 

 forms. Woodpeckers rattled witli exultation against the resounding bark, and seemed 

 to know of the greater store for them now in the nerveless, drowsy trees, that resisted 

 the chisel less stoutly than when they were full of juicy life. Ground squirrels 

 worked hard, gathering the last seeds and nuts to increase their winter's store, and 

 cold-blooded reptiles dragged their stiffening joints to bask in sunny spots, and stim- 

 ulate the slow current of circulation, before they should withdraw and sink into 



