214 



RIVER AND POND DUCKS 



Referring to these teals, Vernon Bailey (1902), says: "The young 

 are protected in the tule 

 cover until old enough to fly, 

 but they have many enemies. 

 The prowling coyote dines 

 with equal relish on a nestful 

 of eggs or an unwary duck, 

 and there are hawks by day 

 and owls by night. The teals 

 could hold their own against 

 these old enemies, however, 

 but a new danger has come 

 to them in the form of the 

 unrestrained market hunter. 

 He goes to the breeding 

 ground just before the young 

 can fly and while the old 

 ducks are molting and 

 equally helpless, and day 

 after day loads his wagon 

 with them for the train. This 

 wholesale slaughter has gone 

 on until some of the breed- 

 ing grounds have been woe- 

 fully thinned not only of 

 teal, but of other ducks. 

 Without speedy and strenuous efforts to procure and enforce pro- 

 tective laws, many species of ducks that breed principally within our 

 limits will soon be exterminated." Where would our wild fowl be to- 

 day had not market hunting been prohibited? 



The Cinnamon Teal consumes vegetable substances to the extent of 

 about four-fifths of its food. It is entirely a surface-feeder and the 

 feeding operations are carried out for the most part along the margins 

 of the ponds or even out on the banks. An examination of the stomach 

 contents of 41 of these teals collected during the eight months from 

 March to October, and from over its entire North American range, gave 

 the following approximate percentages: sedges, 34; pondweeds, 27; 

 grasses, 8; smartweeds, 3; mallows, 2; goosefoot family, 1; miscellaneous 

 plant food, 5; total vegetable food, 80 per cent. Insects, 10; molluscs, 9; 

 miscellaneous, 1; total animal food, 20 per cent. 



In its habits and behavior the Cinnamon greatly resembles its near 

 relative the Blue-wing; its style of flight is the same and its flesh is just 

 as desirable; as a game bird it is popular with the gunners of the West. 

 In the autumn the Cinnamon Teal has not far to travel as its breeding 

 and winter ranges overlap and the migration is merely a shift from the 

 northern portion of its range to the southern, and is accomplished dur- 

 ing September and October. In the spring the return journey is under- 

 taken in March and April. 



