12 THE DUCK 



THE TEAL (Querquedula crecca] 



The length of the teal is only about 14^ inches ; as 

 the bird may be at once recognised by its small size, 

 any description of its plumage is unnecessary. It is 

 a surface-feeding duck. Teal breed more or less 

 freely in many parts of the British Islands. Migrants 

 begin to reach us as early as the latter part of Sep- 

 tember. Most of the migrant birds seek fresh water 

 soon after their arrival. Teal may be encountered in 

 every part of the kingdom where there exists what 

 can be called water in the wider sense, though they 

 are seldom really numerous in any given district. 

 One does not often find more than a very few teal 

 together when the birds are inland, but on the coast, 

 when driven from their fresh-water haunts by stress 

 of weather, they are to be seen in bunches some 

 hundreds strong. In open weather those birds 

 which frequent the shore usually form into compara- 

 tively small bunches of from half a dozen or so up to 

 forty or fifty. The teal when inland prefers running 

 to stagnant water; its favourite haunt, according to 

 my own experience, being a stream with a sandy bed. 

 The flight of the teal is extraordinarily rapid; the 

 bird springs upwards like a rocket, and is then off and 



