WILD FOWL 
to Mexico, Central America and the West Indies. It has been recorded 
from Bermuda, and is an accidental wanderer to the Hawaiian Islands. 
Distribution in the British Isles . — ^To the British Isles it is only a very 
occasional straggler, and has been met with three times, in Yorkshire, 
Devon and Hants respectively, the last mentioned record being some- 
what doubtful. 
The nesting -habits, eggs, food, etc., are much the same as those of the 
common teal. 
AMERICAN BLUE- WINGED TEAL 
QUERQUEDULA DISCORS 
(Plate XXVIll, Fig. 9) 
Querquedula discors, Salvador!, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, p. 299(1895); Saunders, III. 
Man. Brit. Birds, p. 434 (1899) ; Millais, Surface-feeding. Ducks, p. 76 (1902). 
A nas discors, Lilford, Col. Fig, Brit. Birds, part xxx v, pi. (1897). 
"^1^ DULT male. — Head and neck greyish -black, with a slight 
greenish and purplish gloss on the sides of the occiput ; 
/ ^ middle of the crown and chin black; a large crescentic 
i band of white in front of the eye, extending from the 
J sides of the forehead to the sides of the throat; back 
and anterior scapulars blackish with concentric buff 
bars; longer scapulars black with buff shaft-streaks, the two outer- 
most ones with the outer web pale greyish-blue; lower back, rump, 
upper tail-coverts and tail brownish -black glossed with green, with 
paler margins; chest, sides, flanks and belly pale rufous -white spotted 
with black, the longer flank -feathers regularly barred; breast darker 
and barred with blackish; under tail -coverts black; primaries and their 
coverts brownish -black; lesser wing-coverts pale greyish-blue; greater 
secondary -coverts black, widely tipped with white; outer secondaries 
glossy green on the outer web, tipped with black, narrowly margined 
with white, and forming a distinct speculum; long inner secondaries 
black with pale buff shafts like most of the longer scapulars; under 
wing-coverts and axillaries, except along the edge of the wing, pure 
white. Iris brown; bill black; feet yellowish. Total length about 14 5 
inches; bill 1 *6 inch; wing 7 *5 inches; tail 2 8 inches; tarsus 1 3 inch. 
341 
