The Teal 85 
differentiate between the criminal and the innocent, or have the patience to wait 
and watch for the one bad bird that is really doing the mischief? Let us 
look at one instance connected with the bird with which we are treating, and 
which must be my excuse for this digression. 
About the year 1884, the Brown-headed Gulls, formerly represented by a 
couple of hundred pairs, began to increase on the bog at Murthly to an 
alarming extent. Their nests were everywhere in the reed tufts, and about this 
time the Teal began to decrease. James Conacher, the keeper of the Moss, 
at once put it down to the gulls, who, he said, killed the ducklings as soon 
as their mothers brought them down to the bog, and said, moreover, 
that we should have no quantity of duck until a war of gull extermination 
had taken place. On talking the matter over with the head keeper, one 
James Keay, a very superior and observant man, he said that he had noticed 
that all the young Teal that were killed lay dead near two places, and in an 
area of thirty yards square. This seemed plainly to point to the work of 
individuals, and on subsequently watching the places Keay saw a gull that 
had a nest close by actually seize a young Teal, lift it into the air for a 
moment, and drop it dead. This gull and its partner were shot, and no more 
young ducks were found dead in that vicinity during the season ; but the next 
year the gulls of certain nests were found to have again started the murders, 
and they were marked down and shot, after which no more ducks were killed 
for some time, and the Teal increased greatly. All the young Teal killed by 
the gulls were put to death in the same way, the skulls were nipped and 
crushed at the back, and they were not touched again. In June 1890 another 
pair began duck killing, and near the nest of these birds Keay found the 
remains of sixteen Teal, three Tufted Ducks, and two Mallard nestlings. 
It is doubtful if young Teal when half-fledged dive for any part of their 
food as Mallard do. It is quite possible that the young do so, though I have 
never seen them go below the surface of the water except when very frightened 
or wounded. After the young reach the bogs in company with their mothers 
the Teal drakes soon abandon their families. A pair of drakes or three may 
