THE TEAL.] 



BY FIELD, WOOD, AND WATER. 



[the TIAL. 



In most parts of Great Britain, during 

 winter, teal are coniniou ; but it is not very well 

 ascertained whether they remain throughout 

 the year to breed, as they do in France. The 

 female makes a large nest, composed of soft 

 dried grasses, lined with feathers, concealed in 

 a hole among the roots of weeds and bulrushes, 

 near the edge of the water ; and some natural- 

 ists have asserted, that the nests, in several 

 instances, have been found entirely to lloat on 

 the surface of the water, so as to rise and fall 

 with it. The eggs are of the size of those of a 

 piceon, and amount to six or seven in number. 

 Thev are of a dull white colour, freckled with 

 small brownish spots. Their numbers vary. 

 Some have been known to lay twelve eggs. 

 Buffon says, that numbers of young teal are 

 seen in pools, feeding on cresses, wild chervil, 

 &c.; and, unquestionably, as they grow up, they 

 feed, like other ducks, on the various seeds, 

 grasses, and water-plants, as well as on the 

 smaller living things with which all stagnant 

 waters are so abundantly stored. The bird 

 is highly extolled for the excellence of its 

 flavour. 



Teal are seldom found in large numbers; 

 scarcely ever more than ten or twenty are 

 seen together, and this only in stormy weather, 

 and in certain favourite localities near the 

 coast, or by the edges of a sheet of water, 

 where they are fringed with long grass, or 

 brushwood. They are comparatively solitary 

 birds, confining themselves chiefly to families ; 

 and it is only in this way that they are inter- 

 esting to the sportsman. A man may range a 

 considerable section of marshy country, and 

 not see more than a pair or two at a time. In 

 all the moor and boggy districts, in the north 

 of England, they are to be met with ; but never 

 in great numbers- 

 There is a large portion of wild- fowl shooting 

 pursued as a matter of business and traflTic, and, 

 consequently, with a view to filling the cofier 

 rather than furnishing sport. This is chiefly 

 confined to the low districts of the coast, where 

 birds of the duck kind, especially, congregate in 

 immense flocks at certain seasons of the year. 

 Many persons gain a good livelihood by this 

 kind of shooting as it is followed on the Hamp- 

 shire coast, and the Isle of "Wight. The coast 

 between these localities consists, at ebb tide, 

 of vast muddy flats, covered with green sea- j hail 



w eed ; and affords the fowler an opportunity of 

 practising arts perhaps not elsewhere resorted 

 to. Fowling and fisliiiig are, indeed, on thia 

 coast, commonly the employments of the same 

 person. Ho who in summer, with hia lino or 

 net, plies tlie shores wlien they are overflowed 

 by the tide, in winter witli his gun, as evening 

 draws on, runs up in his boat among the littlo 

 creeks, which the tide leaves in tho midlands, 

 and lies in patient expectation of his prey. 

 Sea-fowl usually feed by night, when, in all 

 their multitudes, they come down to graze on 

 the savannahs of the shore. As the sonorous 

 cloud advances (for their noise resembles a 

 pack of hounds in the air in full cry), the 

 attentive fowler listens which way they bend 

 their course : perhaps he has the mortification 

 to hear them alight at too great a distance for 

 his gun (though of the longest barrel) to 

 reach them; and if he cannot edge his boat 

 round some creek, which it is not always in 

 his power to do, he despairs of success that 

 night ; perhaps, however, he is more fortunate, 

 and has the satisfaction to hear the airy noiso 

 approach nearer, till at length the host settle 

 on some plain upon the edge of wliich hia 

 boat is moored. He now, as silently as pos- 

 sible, primes both his pieces anew (for he is 

 generally doubly armed), and listens with all 

 his attention. It is so dark, he can take no 

 aim ; for, if he could discern the birds, they 

 would also seo him, and, being extremely 

 timorous, would seek some other pasture. 

 Though they march with noiso, they feed in 

 silence; some indistinct noises, however, if the 

 night be still, issue from so vast a concourse. 

 He directs his piece, therefore, towards the 

 sound, fires at a venture, and instantly catch- 

 ing up his other gun, discharges it where he 

 supposes the flock to rise on the wing. His 

 gains, for the night, are now decided, and he 

 has only to gather his harvest. He imme- 

 diately puts on his mud-pattens (flat, square 

 pieces of board, which the fowler ties to his 

 feet that ho may not sink in the ooze), ignorant 

 yet of his success, and goes groping about in 

 the dark in quest of his booty, picking up 

 sometimes many, and perhaps not one; so 

 hardly does the poor fowler earn five shillings, 

 exposed in an open boat, during a solitary 

 winter night, to the weather as it comes — rain, 

 hail, or snow, on a bleak coast — a league 



591 



