The Green-winged Teal 



THE RARE beauty of this diminutive duck is not likely to escape 

 notice, and its flesh has received a correspondingly high rating, even 

 though it does take two birds on a single plate to provide a meal for a 

 hungry man. Although no longer common, the Green-wing is probably 

 still the best distributed of any of the California ducks. Its requirements 

 of space and fare are so modest that it may be found upon all the smaller 

 creeks and ponds, irrigating ditches even. Normally these ducks are 



Taken near Santa Barbara 



LADY GREENWING 



Photo by the Author 



highly gregarious, and the quick evolutions of a close-set flock of, say, 

 fifty birds, form a spectacle to make men marvel. Not the best of our 

 aerial circuses will ever attain such flexibility or precision of action. 

 Long persecution, however, has scattered the ancient hordes, and strongly 

 discouraged the flocking tendency. Twos and threes and half dozens 

 are a common sight, and their continued pursuit falls to the farmer boy 

 rather than to the clubman. 



The Green-winged Teal obtains its food not alone by tipping and 

 dabbling, but by agile search on foot. The bird walks with ease and 

 grace, and fallen seeds, nuts, grain, rice, berries, and acorns are as eagerly 

 sought as are the worms and snails of the lesser mud-flats. 



The call-note of the Teal is a miniature "quack" with a whistling 

 quality, and it is probably uttered only by the female. Whatever 

 be the case with the human species — and now that suffrage is an ac- 

 complished fact, we are less bold than in some of our former allegations — 

 it is unquestionable that the duck ladies have practically usurped the 



1768 



