ioo The Water-fowl Family 



Arizona, Mexico, and Lower California, north to New Bruns- 

 wick, Labrador, Repulse Bay, Great Slave Lake, Saskatchewan, 

 and possibly the Yukon Delta. Winters from Maryland, Ken- 

 tucky, Missouri, Texas, and California, south to the West Indies, 

 and South America to Ecuador. Rare on the Pacific Coast, 

 and in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in migration. Re- 

 corded from Europe and Bermuda. 



While the blue-winged teal is generously dis- 

 tributed in the northern United States and lower 

 provinces of Canada, the birds are in no way 

 partial to cold weather and hurry along at the 

 first frosts. True to the sunny South, they loiter 

 on its inland waters and winter along the bays 

 and lagoons of the Gulf Coast, well into the 

 tropics. This bird loves the rice-fields, where 

 the nature of the place affords protection when 

 once the flocks are settled, their danger being on 

 the flight to and from the feeding-ground. On 

 this diet the teal attains the high reputation it 

 holds among epicures. In late August we find 

 them fully fledged, frequenting the marshes of 

 the West where the wild rice grows. They are 

 relentlessly hunted from time of first arrival. Dur- 

 ing the hours that are sacred to the duck marsh, 

 the time after dawn and toward dusk, they are 

 found. At first many are killed by pushing 

 through the grass as they jump up in front of the 

 skiff or on their line of flight between the ponds. 

 At the approach of evening the first line appears 

 over the tops of the rush-grass, flying low and with 



