602 GREEN-WINGED TEAL. 
flies in smal] parties, and fees at night; associates often with the 
Duck and Mallard, feeding on the seeds of various kinds of grasses 
and water-plants, and also on the tender leaves of vegetables. Its 
flesh is accounted excellent. 
The Green-winged Teal is fifteen inches in length, and twenty-four . 
inches in extent ; bill, black ; irides, pale brown; lower eyelid, whitish ; 
head, glossy reddish chestnut; from the eye backwards to the nape 
runs a broad band of rich silky green, edged above and below by a fine 
line of brownish white; the plumage of the nape ends ina kind of 
pendent crest ; chin, blackish; below the chestnut, the neck, for three 
quarters of an inch, is white, beautifully crossed with circular, undu- 
lating lines of black; back, scapulars, and sides of the breast, white, 
thickly crossed in the same manner; breast, elegantly marked with 
roundish or heart-shaped spots of black, on a pale vinaceous ground, 
variegated with lighter tints; belly, white; sides, waved with undu- 
lating lines ; lower part of the vent-feathers, black ; sides of the same, 
brownish white, or pale reddish cream; lesser wing-coverts, brown 
ash; greater, tipped with reddish cream; the first five secondaries, 
deep velvety black, the next five resplendent green, forming the spec- 
ulum or beauty spot, which is bounded above by pale buff, below by 
white, and on each side by deep black; primaries, ashy brown ; tail, 
pointed, eighteen feathers, dark drab ; legs and feet, flesh colored. In 
some, a few circular touches of white appear on the breast near the 
shoulder of the wing. The windpipe has a small, bony labyrinth 
where it separates into the lungs; the intestines measure three fect 
six inches, and are very small and tender. i 
The female wants the chestnut bay on the head, and the band of 
rich green through the eye, these parts being dusky white, speckled 
with black; the breast is gray brown, thickly sprinkled with blackish, 
or dark brown; ‘the back, dark brown, waved with broad lines of 
brownish white ; wing, nearly the same as in the male. 
This species is said to breed at Hudson’s Bay, and to have from five 
to seven young at a time.* In France, it remains throughout the 
year, and builds in April, among the rushes on the edges of the ponds. 
Tt has been lately discovered to breed, also, in England, in the mosses 
about Carlisle.t It is not known to breed in any part of the United 
States. The Teal is found in the north of Europe as far as Iceland, 
and also inhabits the Caspian Sea to the south; extends likewise to 
China, having been recognized by Latham among some fine drawings 
of the birds of that country. 
* Lo roam. t Bewicx. 
* 
