336 NATATORES. 



It breeds in France, and repairs, or at all events appears 

 there, on the inland waters, about March, and immediately 

 commences the business of nest-making. As it has been met 

 with in England a month later than the time at which it 

 pairs in France, there seems not the least doubt that it breeds 

 in the country, but it is one of those birds of which the sum- 

 mer history is imperfect. Its breeding cry resembles that of 

 the corn-crake, only it is hoarser and not quite so loud. The 

 nest is in the thick herbage on the ground, beaten smooth 

 with the feet of the bird, and strewed with a little withered 

 herbage. The eggs are of a greenish fawn colour, and rather 

 more numerous than those of the common teal. 



The bill is black, the irides brown, the feet dusky grey, 

 and the wing-spot greyish green, bordered with white. 

 Crown, nape, and chin, dusky, spotted with white ; a con- 

 spicuous white streak from the eye down the side of the 

 neck ; breast and back purplish brown, with half-moon 

 dusky spots ; belly pale cream colour, sides and vent covered 

 with dusky, coverts grey with white margins, quills and tail 

 feathers dusky. The upper part of the female is brown with 

 dusky streaks, the white line on the neck obscure, and the 

 green of the wing spot nearly obliterated. 



THE BIMACULATED TEAL (Quergruedula glocitans). 



This species has been so rarely seen even in the winter, 

 that it cannot be considered in any other light than that of 

 an occasional straggler. It is an inland breeding bird, and 

 its principal haunts are in the marshy parts of Eastern 

 Europe, and throughout the whole of Northern Asia ; but 

 its habits are little known. In its form it resembles the 

 pintail more than the common teal and the gargany, the 

 females of which, with the exception of the obliterated 

 wing-spot in the gargany, may be very readily mistaken for 

 each other. 



