GREEN-WINGED TEAL. 601 
some gold and greenish reflections; speculum of the wings, nearly 
the same as in the male, but the fine pencilling of the sides, and the 
long, hair-like tail-coverts are wanting ; the fail is also shorter. 
—>———_- 
GREEN-WINGED TEAL.— ANAS CRECCA.— Fie. 289. 
Lath. Syn. iii. p. 554. — Bewick’s Br. Birds, v. ii. p. 338. — Peale’s Museum, 
No. 2832. 
BOSCHAS CAROLINENSIS, — Janvine.* 
f 
‘Anas Carolinensis, Lath. Ind. Ornith. ii. p. 874. — Anas migratoria, Least Greeu- 
‘winged Teal, Bart. Trav. p. 293. — Anas crecea, varietas, Forst. Phil. Trans. 
Ixii. p. 347. — American Teal, Lath. Gen. Hist. x. p. 371.— Anas crecca, Bonap. 
Synop. p. 386. — Anas (boschas) crecea, var. North. Zool. ii. p. 443. 
Tue naturalists of Europe have designated this little Duck by the 
name of the American Teal, as being a species different from their 
own. On an examination, however, of the figure and description of 
the European Teal by the ingenious and accurate Bewick, and com- 
paring them with the present, no difference whatever appears in the 
length, extent, color, or markings of either, but what commonly oc- 
-curs among individuals of any other tribe; both undoubtedly belong 
to one and the same species. 
This, like the preceding, is a fresh-water Duck, common in our 
markets in autumn and winter, but rarely seen here in summer. It 
frequents ponds, marshes, and the reedy shores of creeks and rivers ; 
is very abundant ‘among the rice plantations of the Southern States ; 
~ * Most writers on the ornithology of America have considered this bird as a va- 
riety of the European Teal. All, however, agree in their regarding the difference 
in the variety, and of its being constant in the northern specimens. Thus Dr. La- 
tham mentions the white pectoral band. Forster says, “This is avariety of the 
Teal, for it wants the two white streaks above and below the eyes; the lower one 
indeed is faintly expressed in the male, which has also a lunated bar of white over 
each shoulder ; this is not to be found in the European Teal.” Pennant, “ that it 
wants the white line which the European-one has above each eye, having only one 
below-; has over each shoulder a lunated bar.” The authors of the Worthern 
Zoology observe, “‘ The only permanent difference that we have been able to detect, 
after comparing a number of specimens, is, that the English Teal bas a white lon- 
itudinal. band on the scapulars, which the other wants. All the specimens brought 
Fora by the Expedition have a broad, transverse bar on the shoulder, which does 
not exist in the English one.’ And our author, in his plate, has most distinctly 
marked the differences. From the testimony of all its describers marking the va- 
riety as permanent and similar, I am certainly inclined to consider this bird, though 
nearly allied, to be distinct; and, as far as we yet know, peculiar to the northern 
parts of America. I have not been able to procure a specimen for immediate 
comparison, and only once had an opportunity of slightly examining a northern 
bird: in it the distinctions were at once perceptible. From their great similarity, 
no observers have yet particularly. attended to the manners of the American bird, 
or to the marking of the females. If the above observations are the means of di- 
recting further attention to these points, they will have performed their intended 
end. Iby no means aed the point decided. — Ep. 
