DUCKS 51 



General habits. — The green-winged teal is a fresh-water 

 bird, and although found along the coast, it resorts mainly to 

 the marshes and the shallow, muddy bayous and bays. It 

 gathers into good-sized flocks and sometimes associates with 

 mallards or other large ducks. When much persecuted it 

 feeds chiefly at night. 



Food habits. — The food of the green-winged teal consists 

 largely of vegetable matter (90 per cent) of which the seeds 

 of sedges (including bulrushes and sawgrass) furnish the 

 most important part (38 per cent). These seeds evidently 

 are eagerly sought by the teal, for they formed the sole con- 

 tents of 51 of the 653 stomachs examined, while no less than 

 30,000 seeds were found in one stomach and 25,000 in another. 

 Pondweeds furnish also an important element of the food, 

 amounting to 11.5 per cent, and the seeds of various grasses, 

 including wild millet and wild rice, are eaten in about the 

 same proportion. Other plants taken in smaller quantities 

 are smartweeds, duckweeds, water milfoil, and algae (musk 

 grass). Rice is occasionally eaten in the winter months. 

 The animal food, amounting to 4.5 per cent, consists of in- 

 sects, mainly snails, small crustaceans, and the immature 

 stages of flies.* 



BLUE- WINGED TEAL: Querquedvla discors (Linnaeus). 



State records. — The blue-winged teal is a common transient 

 visitant, apparently more numerous in spring than in autumn. 

 Migrants from the North have been observed at Greensboro 

 as early as September 10 (1886), and September 14 (1891), 

 and at Montgomery, September 20 (1912), about 200 having 

 been observed on the last date. During mild seasons a few 

 may remain in the State all winter. The northward move- 

 ment begins in March and continues till May. Avery speaks 

 of seeing this teal at Greensboro about the first of March, 

 and individuals have been observed at Leighton as early as 

 March 19 (1890), and as late as May 17 (1893). 



The species is recorded from Coosada by Brown, and I ob- 

 served 3 in an overflowed field at Jackson Lake, Elmore 

 County, on April 19, 1912. One was killed near Mobile, No- 



*Mabbott, D. C, Bull. 862, U. S. Dcpt. Agr., -pp. 17-22, 1920. 



