THE COMMON TEAL. Zak 
have these put up every day by 8 o’clock in the morning, and We 
removed in the evening. No matter when you go into it, the i) 
tealery should always feel cool, and smell /azrly sweet. If not, 
there is something wrong, and you must look to it. 
Thus managed you may keep Teal, not only all through the 
hot weather, but right through the rains (when people gene- 
rally tell you that they become uneatable) as fat as butter, to 
constitute, when worn out by the climate (as the best of us 
get more or less by July) one can hardly eat anything, a 
really delicious meal. I know that many a hot weather through, 
the partner of my joys and cares, and myself, have dined 
alternate days on Teal and Quail without ever tiring of them. 
Of course you don’t want Teal before the middle of April, 
and it is some expense (though comparatively little) feeding Teal 
for very long before you want them, so that you should always fill 
your tealery as late as the circumstances of the district permit. | 
These vary a great deal, and I have been in places where i 
the people never could catch many after the end of January, A 
as all the jhils dried up, and the ducks nearly deserted the ie 
place, and others in which the heaviest takes were always } 
towards the end of March. ah 
In the wild state, where not molested, they feed equally by Hi 
day and night, though no doubt at noontide they usually take 
a siesta. I always, therefore, fed my Teal at sunset and sunrise. 
Where habitually shot at they spend the day on some large 
river or sheet of water, and feed chiefly at night, in wet fields, 
swamps, and the smaller jhils, changing their quarters for this 
purpose about sunset, and there is no species more commonly 
bagged in flight-shooting. 
On the wing they are very swift. I doubt if they are 
switter than the Pin-tail, but- they are more nimble, and 
will often escape a Peregrine when the Pin-tail would 
assuredly have been victimized. They turn and twist in the 
air with a rapidity second only to the Cotton Teal, and they 
have a habit after being flushed of dropping suddenly again, 
which I have not noticed in our other ducks. They swim . 
easily, but not very rapidly, and they cannot dive to much ik 
purpose, so that a wounded bird, unless there are weeds near 
under which it can lie with only the bill above water, has, 
as a rule, but a poor chance of escape. 
On the land, if the ground be fairly smooth, they walk 
with tolerable ease; but whilst “one foot on land and one on 
sea” is quite the motto of their lives, the major portion of 
which, if left to their own sweet wills, they pass in swampy 
places half-earth, half-water, it is rare to see them as one i 
im 
i 
Se or Seen TS 
often sees the Wigeon, well out on the dry sward, walking for 
pleasure. 
_Whether it be by night or day, (and that depends upon 
circumstances beyond their control, poor things) their favourite . 
