ANAS XANTHORHYNCHA. 755 
green line; centre of the bill brown, the rest pink; iris hazel. 
Length, 184”; wing, 84"; tail, 3’. 
Fig. Smith, Ill. Zool. 8. Afr. Aves, pl. 104. 
728. Anas XANTHORHYNCHA, Forst. Yellow-billed Teal. 
The “ Geelbec” is our commonest Duck, being abundant all over 
the colony and South Africa generally. It is migratory, as indeed 
are all our Ducks, coming and going with the waters. It is usually 
seen in pairs, male and female, and exhibits all the wariness and 
caution of its race. They breed in considerable numbers at Vogel 
Vley among the rushes and and rocks scattered over that lake. We 
are told that at one season of the year the farmers in that neigh- 
bourhood assemble for a grand hunt after these birds and the 
P. erythrorhyncha. The method of hunting is as follows: The 
shooters are posted in different parts of this long sheet of water, 
hidden among the rushes and the bush-rovered rocks which jut out 
here and there in the shallows. Men are then sent about with the 
long waggon whips, and with these they beat the rushes, and keep 
up a continual cracking (and the crack of a Cape whip is nearly equal 
to that of a gun); the wretched birds fly backwards and forwards 
(having no other water within many miles), and as they pass the 
ambuscades, are shot down; when the day’s butchery is over, the 
dead and wounded are sought for, and usually fill many sacks. 
They construct their nests in the dry veldt, at a distance from the 
water, generally in a dense bush; the female sits so close that unless 
hunted for she will scarcely rise. Her eggs, usually six in number, 
are cream coloured. Axis, 2” 3’; diam., 1’ 9’. 
Captain Trevelyan says that it is not uncommon on vleys near 
Kinewilliamstown. Majors Butler and Feilden and Captain Reid 
state that in the Newcastle district “it was abundant in all the 
vleys, sometimes seen in flocks of considerable size. It was most 
excellent eating, and a decidedly pleasant change from our imprac- 
ticable rations of ‘trek ox!’ Though we found no nests, they 
appeared to be breeding in October.” Mr, Ayres gives the 
following note: “I found a pair of these birds in November, 
in the upper part of the Mooi River, Natal; and in the Transvaal 
they are tolerably plentiful, inhabiting there in some numbers. 
They frequently lie so close in the rushes, where the water is about 
knee-deep, as almost to allow themselves to be trodden on. They 
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