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AMERICAN GREEN-WINGED TEAL. 
Anas carolinensis, Steph . 
PLATE CCCXCII. — Male and Female. 
Nothing can be more pleasing to an American sportsman, than the arrival 
of this beautiful little Duck in our Southern or Western States. There, in 
the month of September, just as the sun sinks beneath the horizon, you may 
find him standing on some moat or embankment of a rice-field in Carolina, 
or a neck of land between two large ponds in Kentucky, his gun loaded 
with number four, and his dog lying at his feet. He sees advancing from 
afar, at a brisk rate, a small dark cloud, which he has some minutes ago 
marked and pronounced to be a flock of Green-winged Teals. Now he 
squats on his haunches ; his dog lies close ; and ere another minute has 
elapsed, right over his head, but too high to be shot at, pass the winged 
travellers. Some of them remember the place well, for there they have 
reposed and fed before. Now they wheel, dash irregularly through the air, 
sweep in a close body over the watery fields, and in their course pass near 
the fatal spot where the gunner anxiously awaits. Hark, two shots in rapid 
succession ! The troop is in disorder, and the dog dashes through the 
water. Here and there lies a Teal, with its legs quivering ; there, one is 
whirling round in the agonies of death ; some, which are only winged, 
quickly and in silence make their way towards a hiding-place, while one, 
with a single pellet in his head, rises perpendicularly with uncertain beats, 
and falls with a splash on the water. The gunner has charged his tubes, 
his faithful follower has brought up all the game, and the frightened Teals 
have dressed their ranks, and flying now high, now low, seem curious to 
see the place where their companions have been left. Again they fly over 
the dangerous spot, and again receive the double shower of shot. Were 
it not that darkness has now set in, the carnage might continue until the 
sportsman should no longer consider the thinned flock worthy of his 
notice. In this manner, at the first arrival of the Green-winged Teal in 
the Western Country, I have seen upwards of six dozen shot by a single 
gunner in the course of one day. 
I have often thought that water-birds, Ducks for example, like land-birds 
which migrate in flocks, are very apt to pass over the place where others of 
the same kind had been before. Pigeons, Starlings, Robins, and other land- 
Vol. VI. 39 
