In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 99 



Querguedula Crecca. " Teal/' This is the smallest and neatest 

 of all the Duck tribe, and quite common amongst us, though I have 

 never heard of its breeding in our neighbourhood. At times they 

 will rise very sharply from the water high in the air, and, unless 

 the sportsman is careful, he will be likely to shoot under them. 

 Their whistle is very clear and tremulous. I have never seen them 

 in these meadows in very large flocks ; but I remember in the 

 winter of 1861 a flock of nearly one hundred took up their quarters 

 on the lake at Cothelston House, on the Quantock Hills, and being 

 left unmolested, remained there nearly the whole of the winter. In 

 ihe winter of 1853 one hundred and sixty Teal and two Ducks were 

 shot by Lord Malmesbury and party in one day at Heron Court. 

 One day, as my brother was out shooting in our water-meadows, he 

 came across two Teal, nestled up against each other on the bank. 

 They did not rise, and on approaching them he found that they 

 were quite dead, apparently frozen. The weather was very hard at 

 the time, but not sufficiently so to account for their death in that 

 way : and the only supposition is that they must have been slightly 

 wounded the day before, and had crept together for warmth, though 

 they bore no 'mark of any external injury at all upon them, and to 

 the eye they looked perfectly alive as they squatted side by side 

 upon the bank. It is astonishing how diflTerently these birds look 

 at different times, when they rise into the air — -sometimes appearing 

 scarcely bigger than a large snipe, and at others so large that for 

 the moment you imagine they are Wigeon or some other of the 

 Duck tribe. They always form a pleasing addition to the bag, and 

 are equally so when they appear in a different shape upon the table. 



Querquedula Circia. " Garganey Teal.'' I have met with the 

 species twice, and I think only twice in our meadows. On the first 

 occasion the keeper had marked down four of them in one of our 

 " carriages," and after a most patient stalk he secured them all, 

 killing three of them on the water and the fourth as it rose. Hart 

 tells me that they are frequently met with at Christchurch. In 

 1870 six or eight were killed there, while in 1877 he found them 

 there with young ones, as he did again in 1880. This year, also, he 

 writes, "There were several pairs of Garganey here, during the 



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