COMMON TEAL. 
ANAS CRECCA. 
The first of tlie ^Vildfo^^i family I ever shot was a handsome old drake Teal, killed when a school-hoy 
from Harrow, home for the holidays, on a eold wintry morning at daybreak, just over thirty years ago. 
The bird was swimming in a small pool of water in a dyke that was partly frozen over in the marshes 
near the coast at Bulverhithe, between St. Leonard’s-on-Sea and Bexhill in Sussex. This beautiful little 
fowl was considered a great prize, and the bag being presently augmented by some Bing-Dotterel and 
about half a score of Dunlins knocked out of a flock sweeping round one of the pells ” *, I returned 
in the evening considerably elated and determined to spend the rest of my vacation in pursuit of Wild- 
fowl. After a time my expeditions were extended to Pevensey Level and inland marshes that stretch 
some miles up the country ; these proved very attractive feeding-grounds for Mallard in those days, 
and great success was met with when I got more used to the work. A change, however, has come over 
this district, and noAV there is not one fowl to be seen where there were formerly hundreds of Ducks 
and Geese. 
The Common Teal seems to be almost universally distributed over all suitable parts of England and 
Scotland that I have visited, breeding most abundantly in the heather on the slopes surrounding many 
of the remote Highland lochs in the wilds of Boss-shire and Sutherland. Large numbers also arrive on 
our shores in severe winters from the north of Europe and remain till driven further south by the long- 
continued inclemency of the weather. 
"While studying agriculture in East Lothian in the autumn of 18G3 I had a narrow escape of a 
ducking, if nothing woise, through following a flock of this species. On my way from Eerrygate near 
North Berwick to Gullane, to dine with a farmer and afterwards await the flight of the 'Wild Ducks in 
the pits dug out at the pools on the links, I noticed half a dozen Teal drop on some small puddles of 
rain-water on the highest ridge of Ebris. This tiny rocky islet can be reached at low water from the 
mainland ; and thinking there was time for a shot, I started off and succeeded in bagging a couple with 
each barrel. On reaching the foot of the rocks again, I discovered the tide commencing to flow over 
the low stony ground that liad to be crossed before making the shore ; and the water was up to my 
knees, but not over the long boots, before I arrived at the sandy links. On this very spot a man in 
charge of a cart and team of horses, who had been loading with stones on the shore, was caught by the 
tide a few years before, but how it happened none can tell. The carter was swept aw'ay by the force 
of the waves, and both horses were, I believe, drowned; possibly the cart had been overloaded, and the 
unfortunate animals were unable to drag it over the stony shore to the land. 
■\Vhile shooting on Breydon mudflats near Yarmouth, in the east of Norfolk, on the morning of the 
* The pools of brackish water just inside the shingle-banks bordering the Channel are generally known by that name among the natives of this 
part of Sussex. 
