UPLAND SHOOTING. 115 



betake themselves to the fresh-water ponds, and soon become 

 fat, when they afford excellent eating ; but when the ponds are 

 covered with ice, they betake themselves to estuaries or inlets 

 of the sea, and their flesh becomes less juicy, and assumes a 

 fishy flavor. During continued frost, they collect into larger 

 bodies than at any other time — a flock once alighted seeming to 

 attract others, until at last hundreds of them meet, especially in 

 the dawn and toward sunset. The larger the flock, however, 

 the more diflicult it is to approach it, for many sentinels are seen 

 on the lookout, while the rest are asleep or feeding along the 

 shores. Unlike the Sea Ducks, this species does not ride at an- 

 chor, as it were, during its hours of repose." — Auduboii's Birds 

 of America. 



THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 

 Anas Discors. 



" Male, 16.3U. Female, 15.24. 



" Breeds in Texas and Westward, Great Lakes, Fur Coun- 

 tries, Columbia River. Very abundant in autumn and spring in 

 the Middle Atlantic Districts, as well as in the interior. Abun- 

 dant also in all the Southern States. 



" Adult Male. 



" Bill almost as long as the head, deeper than broad at the 

 base, depressed toward the end ; its breadth nearly equal in its 

 whole length, being, however, a little enlarged toward the 

 rounded tip. Upper mandible with the dorsal outline at first 

 sloping, then nearly straight, on the unguis decurved, the rido-e 

 broad and flat at the base, suddenly narrowed over the nostrils 

 broader and convex toward the end ; the sides erect at the base, 

 afterward sloping and convex ; the narrow membranous mar- 

 gins a little broader at the end. Nostrils sub-basal, near the 

 ridge, rather small, elliptical, pervious. Lower mandible flat- 

 tened, straight, with the angle very long and rather narrow, the 



