THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 495 



QUERQUEDULA DISCORS. Stephens. 

 The Blue-winged Teal. 



Anas discors, Wilson. Am. Orn., VIII. (1814) 74. Aud. Orn. Biog., IV. (1838) 

 111. lb., Birds Am., VI. (1843) 287. 



Querquedula discors, Stephens. Shaw's Gen. Zool., XII. (1824) 149. 



Anas (Boschas) discors, Swainson. F. Bor. Am., II. (1831) 444. Nutt. Man., II. 

 (1834) 397. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Male. Head and neck above plumbeous-gray; top of head black; a white cres- 

 cent in front of the eye; under parts from middle of the neck purplish-gray, 

 each feather with spots of black, which become more obsolete behind; forepart of 

 back with the feathers brown, with two undulating narrow bands of purplish-gray ; 

 feathers on the flanks banded with dark-brown and purplish-gray; back behind and 

 tail greenish-brown; crissum black; wing coverts and some of the outer webs of 

 scapulars blue; other scapulars velvet-black or green, streaked with pale reddish- 

 buff; speculum glossy-green ; the outer greater wing coverts white, as are the axil- 

 lars, the middle of under surface of the wing, and a patch on each side of the base 

 of the tail; bill black; feet flesh-colored; iris dark-hazel. 



Female. With the top of head brown, and the wing coverts blue and white, as 

 in the male; base of bill, except above, chin, and upper part of the throat, dirty 

 yellowish- white; back brown, the feathers margined with paler; under parts whit- 

 ish, with rounded obscure brown spots; the jugulum darker. 



Length of male, sixteen inches; wing, seven and ten one-hundredths; tarsus, 

 one and twenty one-hundredths; commissure, one and eighty-five one-hundredths 

 inches. 



Hob. Eastern North America to Rocky Mountains. Not yet found on the 

 Pacific coast nor in Europe. 



This species is more often found in small creeks near the 

 seashore than the Green-winged Teal ; but it prefers the 

 small fresh-water ponds and streams to the salt water, and 

 is most abundant in mill-ponds, where the water varies in 

 depth in different days ; there it searches in the little nooks 

 and pools, among the half-submerged rocks and bushes, for 

 its favorite food of aquatic insects and the seeds of aquatic 

 plants. It arrives from the South in spring, by the latter 

 part of April, sometimes earlier, and remains lingering in 

 its favorite haunts until the first week in May. It proceeds 

 slowly to the North, where it breeds ; and it then returns 

 through New England, by the middle of September, to the 

 Southern States, where it passes the winter. It sometimes 

 breeds in New England. George A. Boardman, Esq., has 



