River and Pond Ducks 



Green-winged Teal 



{Anas caroUnensis) 



Length — 14 inches. One of the smallest ducks. 



Male — Head and neck rich chestnut, with a broad band of glossy 

 green running from eyes to nape of neck; chin black; 

 breast light pinkish-brown, spotted with black; upper back 

 and sides finely marked with waving black and white lines; 

 lower.back dark grayish brown, underneath white. A white 

 crescent in front of the bend of the wing; wings dull gray, 

 tipped with buff and with patch or speculum half purplish 

 black and half rich green. Head slightly subcrested. Bill 

 black. Feet bluish gray. 



Female — Less green on wings ; no crest ; throat white ; head and 

 neck streaked with light reddish brown on dark-brown 

 ground; mottled brownish and buff above; lower parts 

 whitish changing to buff on breast and lower neck, which 

 are clouded with dusky spots. 



Range — North America at large; nests in Montana, Minnesota, 

 and other northern states, but chiefly north of the United 

 States; winters from Virginia and Kansas, south to Cuba, 

 Honduras, and Mexico. 



Season — Spring and autumn migratory visitor north of Washing- 

 ton and Kansas ; more abundant in the interior than on the 

 coasts. 



Next to the wood duck, this diminutive, exquisitely marked 

 and colored kinsman is perhaps the handsomest member of its 

 tribe; and, next to the merganser, it is said to be the most fleet 

 of wing as it is of foot, unlike many of its waddling relations; 

 but epicures declare its delicious flesh is the one characteristic 

 worth expending superlatives upon. When the teal has fed on 

 wild oats in the west, or on soaked rice in the fields of Georgia 

 and Carolina, Audubon declared it is much superior to the glori- 

 fied canvasback. Nothing about its rankness of flavor when it 

 has gorged on putrid salmon lying in the creeks in the north- 

 west, or the maggots they contain, ever creeps into the books; 

 and yet this dainty little exquisite of the southern rice fields has 

 a voracious appetite worthy of the mallard, around the salmon 

 canneries of British Columbia, where the stench from a flock of 

 teals passing overhead betrays a taste for high living, no other 

 gourmand can approve. When clean fed, however, there is no 

 better table-duck than a teal. 



103 



