156 Brewster, Records of Cinnamon Teal. [April 



"During my first trip to Florida in 1868-69. . . I found two 

 species of Teal very abundant about the head of Indian River (on 

 the east side) in pools in the marshes. My note book says that 

 these were Nettion carolinensis and Querquedula cyanoptera .... 

 Two or three [of the latter] were shot along the shore. These 

 specimens were never skinned but were plucked and eaten as we 

 were in need of provisions at the time. The birds taken, either 

 young males or females, were strongly reddish in tinging on the 

 tips of the feathers of the under parts. Until my second visit to 

 the same place in the early 70's I did not find out that this tinging 

 was due to a stain caused by iron-impregnated water of some pools 

 which I had not seen on my first trip, but which the birds appeared 

 to frequent. You know that many ducks become stained in this 

 manner, but that was probably not known to me in my younger 

 ornithological days, although I have seen it hundreds of times 

 since. 



" The reason why I include the Red-breasted Teal among the 

 birds of Florida is on account of notes given me by Mr. Chas. 

 Naumann of whom you know, who lived at Dummitt's for some 

 years. He always insisted that he had taken adult males [of Q. 

 cyanoptera] here .... I am sure now, however, that I never saw the 

 Red-breasted Teal in Florida." 



In 1889 Mr. W. E. D. Scott published the following note: "Un- 

 der date of November 12, 1888, Mr. J. W. Atkins of Key West 

 writes me: 'Did I give you the record of a Cinnamon Teal taken 

 here on November 1, 1887? I have the skin in my collection, and 

 on October 24 (this year) I examined another of the species in the 

 possession of a boy, who had just shot it in a pond near the town, ' ' n 

 i. e., Key West. If, as we are left to infer, this youthful gunner 

 plucked and ate his bird, he probably committed no very serious 

 act of vandalism, for the Teal which Mr. Atkins preserved and 

 which is now in my collection, 2 is nothing more nor less than a 



i Auk, VI, 1889, 160. 



2 I received this bird, with a number of others taken in Florida, directly from 

 Mr. Scott. It still bears the original label on which is inscribed, in Mr. Atkins's 

 unmistakable handwriting. " Anas cyanoptera, Key West, Fla. Nov. l/88. J. W. 

 Atkins." It will be observed that this date is just a year later than the one men- 

 tioned by Mr. Atkins in his letter to Mr. Scott. Nevertheless it is practically certain 

 that the specimen is the same as that to which Mr. Atkins referred in this letter 

 where, no doubt, the date of its capture was correctly given. 



