238 AMERICAN GAME. 



the feeders of Lake Superior, and throughout the western 

 country so far south as Texas, and northward to the 

 Columbia and the fur countries, the Blue- Winged Teal 

 breeds, literally by myriads. Throughout the great 

 lakes, it is abundant in the early autumn, becoming 

 excessively fat on the seed of the wild rice, with which 

 the shallows of all these waters are overgrown, and being 

 deservedly esteemed as one of the best, if not the very 

 best, of the duck tribe. But it is the first of its race to 

 remove from the wild, limpid waters, and wood-embo- 

 somed rivers of the great west, to the seaboard tide- waters, 

 taking the inland water-courses on their route, rarely 

 visiting the actual sea-shores, and proceeding on the 

 occurrence of the first frosts, for they are singularly sus- 

 ceptible of cold, to the Southern States, where they swarm, 

 especially in the inundated rice-fields of Georgia and 

 South Carolina, during the winter months.. 



The Green- Winged Teal, which is the nearest con- 

 gener, and frequently the associate of the Blue-Wing, 

 -has a far less extensive range, so far as regards its breed- 

 ing-grounds, in as much as it never, so far as has been 

 satisfactorily shown, has nidificated or produced its 

 young south of the great lakes, nor even there in great 

 numbers, its favorite haunts for the purposes of repro- 

 duction, being the extreme northern swamps and wooded 

 morasses, almost up to the verge of the arctic circles. 

 It does not come down on its southward migration, at 

 nearly so early a period of the autumn as its congener, 



