338 THE ZOOLOGIST 
BLUE-WINGED TEAL (QUERQUEDULA DISCORS) 
BREEDING IN NORTH ICELAND. 
By F. Cosurn. 
In my paper, ‘‘ Brief Notes on an Expedition to the North of 
Iceland in 1899”’ (Zool. 1901, pp. 401-419), at p. 411, I gave 
‘Teal, ? sp.,”” and stated that I had seen a female Teal with 
a very dark back leading a brood of dark coloured young towards 
the water, and that, when feigning lameness to distract our 
attention from them, she momentarily expanded her wings, 
when I noticed that she had one broad white bar across instead 
of the two narrow ones, which is the complement for the Common 
Teal (Q. crecca). 
I was riding at the time, and unluckily my guide, Sigurdur 
Samlaridason, was in advance, carrying my guns. I shouted to 
him to use the 12-bore and shoot the bird, but he did not 
understand, or could not see the bird I was pointing to, and 
when I took the gun from him and followed up the bird all my 
efforts to procure her or any of the young were fruitless. I asked 
readers of ‘The Zoologist’ for information as to what species of 
female Teal had one white bar across the wing, but could get no 
definite information, although I have a hazy recollection that some 
one did write to me, but who it was I cannot now remember. 
At South Kensington Museum I made inquiries, but none of 
the assistants there knew of any female Teal that had but one 
white bar across the wing ; later I wrote to the curators of some 
other museums, but could get no satisfactory information. 
Remembering my discovery of the breeding of the American 
Wigeon (Mareca americana) in the same district of North Iceland, 
I naturally thought of the Blue- and Green-winged Teals, and 
searched all books available to me, both British and American, 
for information on these birds, but it is almost incredible that 
in none could be found any description of the female Blue-winged 
