AMERICAN GREEN-WINGED TEAL 
241 
In 1894 only twenty-six were secured out of a total of 6741 ducks, and in other 
years (1904, 1905, 1914), almost as lean times occurred. I am told that Teal 
are absent there in the spring but definite records are lacking. Very interesting 
statistics from the Monroe Marsh Club (west end of Lake Erie) in the autumn 
shooting between 1885 and 1901 show that Teal numbered 3587 in a total of 40,615 
ducks shot, or 8%, but during the spring seasons not a single Teal was recorded, due 
apparently to restrictive game laws. The largest years were 1888, 1889, 1890, 
1896, 1897, 1898, the largest being 1898. The lowest years were 1886, 1892, 1895, 
1900, 1901. A comparison with the number of Blue-wings is not advisable because 
great bodies of the latter pass over this region before the shooting season is well 
under way. I am not able to say definitely whether there is a great dearth of Teal 
in the spring flight. It is possible that their absence in certain places may be partly 
due to high water. Nevertheless I am inclined to think that there is a more western 
spring migration route. 
Turning to North Carolina we find Teal representing a smaller proportion of the 
ducks shot at Currituck, numbering only 4% at the Currituck Club, 7% at the Swan 
Island Club and 2% at the Princess Anne Club (Virginia). Sportsmen do not always 
shoot Teal when larger ducks are about so that the actual numbers are not entirely 
representative. However, between the years 1889 and 1918 there is no definite 
indication of diminution; the large years at the Currituck Club were 1900, 1901, 
1904, and small years go back as far as 1889. Large years at the Swan Island Club 
(1909 to 1919) were 1910 and 1913, the low ones 1918 and 1919 but these last have no 
significance on account of the new bag-limit law. From my own experience at Curri- 
tuck I feel sure that Green-wings do not come to that region in as great a volume 
as they do about Lake Erie. Very likely much of this Erie flight passes south to 
the west of the Appalachians, down the Ohio and Mississippi valleys just as banded 
Mallard in that same region have been shown to do. 
The status of the Teal is a little different on the South Carolina coast where as 
many as 324 have been taken in a total of about 3000 other ducks, the proportion 
varying from 1 % to 10% of the shoal-water ducks shot at the Santee Club. This is 
more of a Teal country than the sounds farther north. 
The great winter home of the species is on the Gulf Coast. Here it is extremely 
abundant, particularly in Louisiana, where I have seen them by the 100,000 in the 
month of January. Farther west the Green-wing is probably second in abundance 
among the ducks. In the Rio Grande Valley it was second to the Mallard, represent- 
ing 16 to 18% of all ducks shot (Leopold, 1919). In California it seems to exceed all 
other species. In 1895-96 more than 82,000 were sold in the markets of San Francisco 
and Los Angeles, Records of a gun-club near Monterey show that it is second in 
number, sometimes exceeded by the Pintail, sometimes by the Widgeon. Of the 
ducks received by the San Francisco Market in 1910-11 no less than 27 % were Teal, 
