382 ANAS DISCORS 
course. It is contracted slightly in the middle and very slightly enlarged at the 
upper end. 
Food. The food of the Blue-wing is not particularly characteristic except that a 
great deal of animal matter is taken. The investigations made by the United States 
Biological Survey were based on an examination of three hundred and nineteen 
stomachs collected mostly in Wisconsin, Florida, Maine and North Dakota during 
the months of September, October and November, although twenty -five other States 
and four Canadian Provinces were represented, and specimens were taken in all 
months but January. The general averages give an adequate picture for the autumn 
months only. On account of its early departure from the north and its early arrival 
in the south the animal food forms a larger proportion than in the Green-wing. Per- 
haps this preference for animal food helps to determine the early departure for the 
south. The vegetable food was somewhat over 70% and the animal food almost 
30 %. The former included principally seeds of sedges (18.79 %) ; seeds of pond-weeds 
comprised 12.6% (one stomach contained 700 seeds of widgeon-grass), though these 
birds pay much attention to leaves and stems as well as to seeds. Seeds of grasses 
amounted to 12.26%, the favorite food being wild rice. One stomach contained 
some corn, and twelve others, taken in Florida in November, had waste grains 
of rice. Seeds of smart-weeds comprised only 8.22%, while algae, water-lily 
seeds, water milfoils and other miscellaneous vegetable food was taken in small 
amounts. 
Of the animal food the most important were mollusks, and among these, snails 
were most numerous. The stomach of a Teal collected in Iowa in August contained 
thousands of snail eggs. Insects were found in the proportion of 10.41 %, and caddis 
larvae together with their cases formed the largest constituent. Beetles amounted 
to only 2.6 % and water-bugs, flies, grasshoppers and ants were found in small num- 
bers. Crustaceans represented less than 2% of the food (Mabbott, 1920). 
In the old days, when the cultivation of rice was such an important industry in 
South Carolina and Georgia, the Blue-wing used to be a much commoner bird than it 
is to-day. Another favorite food mentioned by nearly all writers, is the wild rice 
{Zizania palustris). 
These Teal do not always feed in the manner characteristic of all shoal-water 
ducks, that is, by “tipping up.” In the summer, at any rate, they have been fre- 
quently noticed swimming with head immersed up to the eyes (Harper, MS.) and 
they are also rather fond of sifting for food on mudflats, like other ducks. 
All ducks, perhaps, will feed on maggots if they are obtainable. The Blue-wing 
is no exception. In New Mexico a pair was seen feeding on maggots which had 
fallen from a dead cow and were floating on the water (Lantz and Piper, U.S. Bio- 
logical Survey field-notes). 
