98 LOCAL FLIGHTS, ETC. 
of the grounds for protection, hence the need for a 
good cover upon the margin of the grounds. Should 
any divers be observed, they will be found apart from 
the non-divers and occupying deeper water, unless 
stormy weather compels them to seek shelter. 
A feeding ground may be in wheat, corn or barley 
fields, particularly for mallards, pintails or green- 
winged teals, edges of wild rice, smartweed or water- 
pepper, wherever frogbit or duckweed is to be found. 
Bluewinged teals delight in wild rice beds and frog-- 
bit, where the seeds float upon the surface of the water 
in long mossy strings; they like to neighbor with the 
coots or mudhens. Upon sloughs, swamps or ponds, 
wherever food is to be found, they muster according 
the ratio of food to be found, and ducks readily ac- 
commodate themselves to food conditions as necessity 
requires. The food of the redleg mallard in the South- 
ern and Middle states consists principally of oak mast 
and water-pepper; whereas, in the North and West 
barley, wheat, with wild rice, are their favorite foods. 
Greenwinged teals flock around the muddy edges 
of sloughs, in cornfields, in and around shallow pond 
holes and marshes, creeks, banks of lakes, etc., where 
slugs, snails, larvae of insects and tadpoles abound, as 
well as the mouths of sloughs and ditches, where frog- 
bit and duckweed profusely abound. 
Canvas-backs, redheads, bluebills and other divers, 
as ringbills, buffle-heads, whistlers, etc., flock to lakes 
and deep sloughs, where wild celery, lily and lotus beds 
thrive; where such food is to be found the three first 
mentioned divers rarely leave until they have depleted 
the bed. Bluebills and ringbills like to associate in 
ficcks called rafts, and float about during the middle 
