1907 ] Brewster, Records of Cinnamon Teal. 155 



longer and narrower in cyanoptera than in discors. I have seen 

 one or two birds, however, which, after the most careful study, I 

 have been unable to satisfactorily determine by the tests just 

 mentioned or by any others known to me. 



In view of these inherent difficulties and popular misconceptions 

 it is perhaps not to be wondered at that reddish-stained specimens 

 of the Blue-winged Teal, such as I have just described, should 

 be sometimes mistaken for Cinnamon Teal, even by ornithologists 

 of good standing and large field experience. That several impor- 

 tant published records of the supposed occurrence of Q. cyanoptera 

 in our South Atlantic States were either certainly or probably 

 based on erroneous identifications of this kind I shall now proceed 

 to show. 



The earliest of these records is by Dr. J. A. Allen who, writing 

 in 1869, * says: "This species [Q. cyanoptera] was found by Mr. 

 Maynard in great numbers in the savannas of the upper part of 

 Indian River, but unfortunately the specimens he obtained were 

 lost." 



Mr. Maynard told me, not long after this experience happened, 

 that his birds were identified in the field and that he referred them 

 to cyanoptera merely because of the fact (which he supposed at the 

 time to be conclusive) that their under parts were tinged with 

 reddish. When Mr. Cory and I were shooting in these same 

 'savannas' in February, 1889, we found no Red-breasted Teal, 

 but wintering Blue-wings were met with in numbers and several 

 of the specimens we killed had rusty-red bellies and breasts. These 

 and other considerations have long since led me to believe that the 

 birds originally recorded by Dr. Allen were probably all Blue- 

 winged Teal. In his 'Birds of Eastern North America' Mr. May- 

 nard mentions the Red-breasted Teal only in the Appendix where 

 (on page 520) he merely says: "Occurs west; accidental in Lou. 

 and Fla." In the second edition of this work he includes the 

 species in the main body of the text (on page 121), but with only 

 the brief statement that it "is occasionally found in the Gulf 

 States, even as far east as Indian River, Florida." He now writes 

 me (under date of February 23, 1907) as follows: 



1 J. A. Allen, On the Mammals and Winter Birds of East Florida, Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., II, No. 3, Oct., 1869, 363. 



