DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS: Family Anatidae [143] 



with animal matter. The Sauvies Island stomach was one-third filled with 

 wheat, the balance of the food consisting of crane-fly and chironomid 

 larvae, small crustaceans, snails, and dragonfly nymphs. The Netarts 

 birds had taken snails and other mollusks as their main article of food, 

 although one had fed heavily on eelgrass and another on clover (Trifolium 

 sp.) and sedge (Scirpus) seeds. Caddisfly larvae also had been taken. 



Green-winged Teal: 



Nettion carolinense (Gmelin) 



DESCRIPTION. " Adult male: Head light chestnut, forehead and chin blackish; a wide 

 crescent of green and black inclosing eye and reaching to base of crest; breast buffy, 

 spotted with black; back gray, shoulders crossed by white bar; shoulders and sides 

 finely cross-lined with black and white; wing with green and black speculum, 

 bordered above by buff and below by white; under tail coverts black, bordered by 

 rich buff. Adult female: back, sides, and breast dusky, scalloped and mottled with 

 buff; throat and belly whitish; base of wing slaty; wing with speculum as in male. 

 Young male: belly white." (Bailey) Downy young: "The upper parts are 'mummy 

 brown' or 'Prout's brown,' darkest on the crown and rump; the under parts shade 

 from 'buckthorn brown' or 'clay color,' on the side of the head and throat, to 

 'cinnamon buff' or 'light buff,' on the breast and belly; the side of the head is dis- 

 tinctly marked by a broad loral and postocular stripe of dark brown and a similar 

 auricular stripe below it, from the eye to the occiput; a broad superciliary stripe of 

 buff extends from the bill to the occiput, but it is interrupted by an extension of the 

 dark crown nearly or quite down to the eye; the color of the back is relieved by buffy 

 spots on the thighs, scapulars, and wings." (Bent) Si%e: "Length 11.50-15.00, 

 wing 6.15-7.40, bill 1.40-1.60." (Bailey) Nest: A shallow depression, usually well 

 concealed in the grass, well lined with grass and weeds and protected with a cover 

 of down. Eggs: 6 to 18, usually 10 to ix, dull white or cream colored. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Breeds over northern part of continent south to Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, southern Ontario, Wisconsin, northern Iowa, Nebraska, southern Colo- 

 rado, New Mexico, Nevada, and central California. Winters in southern part of 

 continent, most abundantly in southwestern United States and Mexico. In Oregon: 

 Reported as breeding in Klamath Lake, Harney, and Washington Counties by early 

 observers but known to us only as a migrant. In migration, one of the common 

 ducks on all waters of State. Winters regularly and commonly on coast and on 

 Columbia River, at least as far as Portland, and occasionally on open waters in 

 eastern part of State. 



THE GREEN-WINGED TEAL, the smallest of the ducks that visit Oregon, 

 is popularly reported to be the fastest on the wing, and many are the 

 stories told around duck clubs of the speed these birds are able to attain 

 when really in a hurry. Townsend (1839) included it in his list of birds 

 for this area. Anthony (1886) stated in his paper on the birds of Wash- 

 ington County that a few bred in that territory in the eighties. Bendire 

 (1877) reported it as breeding in the Harney Valley. It has also been 

 reported as breeding in the Klamath country by J. J. Furber, formerly 

 warden of the Lower Klamath Bird Reservation, and as nesting near the 



