TEASER—TECTRICES 949 
by the absence of the upper buff line on the side of the head and 
of the white scapular stripe, while he presents a whitish crescentic 
bar on the sides of the lower neck just in front of the wings. 
Species more or less allied to these two are found in most other 
parts of the world, and among such species are some (for instance, 
the 4. gibberifrons of the Australian region and the A. eatoni of 
Kerguelen Island) in which the male wears almost the same incon- 
spicuous plumage as the female. But the determination of the 
birds which should be technically considered “ Teals,” and belong 
to the subgenus Neftiwm (generally misspelt Nettion), as distinguished 
from other groups of Anating, is a task not yet accomplished, and 
confusion has possibly been caused by associating with them such 
species as the GARGANEY (p. 309) and its probable allies of the 
group Querquedula. Others again have not yet been discriminated 
from the WIGEONS, the PINTAILS (p. 726), or even from the typical 
form of Anas, into each of which groups Neétiwm seems to pass 
without any great break. In ordinary talk “Teal” stands for 
any Duck-like bird of small size, and in that sense the word is 
often applied to the members of the genus Netfopus, though system- 
atists will have it that they are Geese, which the formation of their 
trachea shews they are not. In the same loose sense the word is 
often applied to the two most beautiful of the Family Anatide, 
belonging to the genus 47 (commonly misspelt 47#)—the Carolina 
or Wood-Duck of North America, 4. sponsa (not to be confounded 
with the above-named Anas carolinensis or Nettium carolinense), and 
the Mandarin-Duck of China, 4. galericulata. Hardly less showy 
than these are the two species of the group named Hunetta,—the 
Faleated Duck, EH. falcata, and the Baikal Teal, #. formosa,—both 
from Eastern Asia, but occasionally appearing in Europe. Some 
British authors have referred to the latter of these well-marked 
species certain Ducks that from time to time occur, but they are 
doubtless hybrids, though the secret of their parentage may be 
unknown; and in this way a so-called Bimaculated Duck, Anas 
bimaculata, was for many years erroneously admitted as a good 
species to the British list, but of late this has been properly dis- 
carded (cf. Suchetet, Hist. du Bimaculated Duck, Lille: 1894). 
TEASER, a local name for the Arctic Gull (SkuA). 
TECTRICES (sing. tectrix), the feathers that cover the base of 
the quill-feathers of the wing (REmicgEs, p. 780) and of the tail 
(RECTRICES, p. 769), in each case divisible into Upper and Lower, 
according to their position on the dorsal or ventral surface ; but 
the tail-coverts need little further notice, while those of the wing 
deserve much attention. Setting aside the marginal feathers, each 
group of wing-coverts, whether Upper or Lower, comprises three 
series—known as the Greater, Middle and Lesser—the two first 
