THE TEAL 227 



too much persecuted. In the South, upon the club 

 preserves at Currituck, where spring shooting has 

 recently been stopped, Mr. Whitney, of Outing, says 

 teal have begun to breed in large numbers. A special 

 law prohibiting spring shooting in Jefferson County, 

 New York, was followed by the same result. These 

 facts sufficiently demonstrate the benefits to be de- 

 rived from club rules and State laws prohibiting the 

 shooting of wild-fowl in the spring. Not only teal 

 but wood-ducks, mallard, and dusky- ducks nested in 

 Jefferson County. 



I have always regarded the teal as among the best 

 of all the game birds. They fly with wonderful rapid- 

 ity, present most difficult marks, and are more easily 

 transported than the larger birds. 



I have had fine sport with teal on many marshes, 

 have shot them over decoys, jumped them in the wild- 

 rice, shot them when flying over points or passes, 

 followed them along the banks of many rivers and 

 prairie sloughs, both on foot and in the saddle, and 

 have made large bags by riding an Indian pony through 

 the tall reeds and rushes of Western lakes and ponds. 



Several birds are often killed at a shot, since teal fly 

 quite close together and often " bunch " when the 

 sportsman rises from his ambush. Upon one occa- 

 sion, when on the march with an army outfit in the 

 valley of the Tongue River, Montana, I dropped 

 behind the command and followed the windings of the 

 stream, in the hope of shooting a few ducks for din- 

 ner. While fording the stream my pony stopped to 

 drink just as he entered it and a large flock of teal 

 soon appeared flying some thirty feet above the water. 



