54 Wild Life in Wales 



one another after their own peculiar manner ; both occasion- 

 ally gave vent to hoarse croaks, not very loud, and 

 apparently expressive of content, an almost monosyllabic 

 Kurru y kurru. In addition to this the male sometimes made 

 use of a loud call, rather resembling the honk of a goose. 

 This was always uttered when the birds had drifted far 

 apart (as they very quickly do when indulging in their long 

 dives) and invariably had the effect of summoning the 

 female to his side, when an exchange of bows and ruffling 

 of hoods would be gone through, after which fishing 

 operations would be resumed again. When uttering this 

 note the male held his neck straight out in front of him, 

 low over the surface of the water, and the hood being then 

 laid back gave him the appearance of being two birds, a 

 large and a small one, in close proximity to each other. 

 After he had called, his head was raised to the full extent of 

 the long neck, and, with hood expanded, he then advanced 

 in full dignity to meet his partner, a very pretty and at 

 the same time extraordinary sight. This pair of grebes 

 remained on the lake for at least a fortnight, others seen 

 earlier in the year seemed to disappear almost at once. 



Teal were sometimes numerous on the lake ; on jrd 

 November 1 906, I saw a flock of quite fifty together. On 

 fine mornings in spring the whistling of the drakes, and 

 their gambols of courtship on the water, were very enter- 

 taining. The lovenote always reminds me of the creaking 

 of a rusty hinge on a door that is being constantly moved 

 to and fro ; and when the bird that utters it is not very 

 far away, and keeps up its monotonous repetition, it 

 becomes almost as irksome to the ear ; heard once in a while, 

 its musical effect may be recognised, and one is tempted to 

 listen again from the association of greening marsh, and 

 eager rising trout that it conjures up. The female's voice 

 seems to be restricted to a hoarse quack, but, unlike Mallards, 

 it is the male Teal that is the noisy and demonstrative partner. 

 Most of the Teal go elsewhere to breed, a few of them 

 nesting about the lakelets or bogs on the moors. 



The rapidity of a Teal on the wing is well known, but I 

 had an illustration one day of how easily a Falcon can out- 



