and remain about a small pond until in June; but about the time a nest was to be expected, the Ducks 
would leave. 
These birds are especially fond of muddy pools and ponds overgrown with lilies and rushes. During 
the spring they frequent the river bottoms, and take great delight in muddy sloughs after freshets. In 
the fall they feed about ditches and stagnant ponds. They often congregate in large flocks of twenty-five 
or more, and during midday enjoy sitting on the edge of a mud-puddle in perfect quiet, at which time 
one can walk close to them without noticing their presence, so closely do they sit to the ground and so 
protective is their coloring. 
Of all our Ducks the Teal is perhaps the most unsuspecting or unintelligent, or both, for 
they will usually allow a gunner to walk close to them, without taking to wing, and if they show 
any alarm it is to their disadvantage, for when frightened they huddle together so closely that twenty 
birds will scarcely occupy a square yard of space. The experienced gunner knowing this pecu- 
liarity watches his opportunity and is often enabled to kill a dozen or more birds at one discharge of 
his gun. Certainly a cruel and unsportsman like method of procuring game, but I observe that few 
hunters despise such an opportunity. When surprised and mistreated in this way, the uninjured Ducks 
take wing, but being loth to leave their dead and wounded companions, or else not comprehending the 
situation, fly off a short distance and circling about will relight in the very same place or hover about 
the hunter time and again, until several more shots still farther decimate their numbers. At last the 
few remaining seem to comprehend that they are in danger and hastily fly away. Often however, they 
will return the next, and on following days if undisturbed. However easy it may be to kill these birds 
during their resting period of the day, the sportsman will find it an entirely different matter to shoot 
them about dark when Coming into their roosting places. At this time they fly like an arrow, and a 
single bird will pass any but the very best marksman. When properly cooked, the flesh is generally excellent, 
though sometimes it is oily and strong. Birds that have become too fat. are especially fishy. Nearly 
all Ducks as they come to us, are fatter in the fall than in the spring, and are also tenderer and 
more edible, but the Teal is better in the spring, because at this time they are not so fat. Every- 
where they are much prized as table birds, and when in proper form, this praise is very just. 
Like all game birds their numbers are becoming rapidly lessened. Indeed they are but poorly 
prepared to withstand the everlasting firing of the standing army of hunters equipped with deadly 
breech-loaders. Nearly evei’y pond is now guarded ; nearly every mud-liole has an armed sentinel, and 
the day is not far distant when this fine little Duck will be as rare as it was at one time common. Such 
seems to be the fast approaching fate of all our highly prized species. Like the Indian, I look back 
over years past and deplore the inroad of civilization. My “Buffalo” were the Duck; my “Deer” the 
Turkeys, the Ruffed Grouse, and the Quail. My “hunting-grounds,” the weedy stubble and the unmo- 
lested wood. Nearly all of these are gone, and gone never to be restored. I can well fancy the deep 
emotion, the heart-felt, wrong of Nature’s child, as he witnessed the advance of the tide of empire. 
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