FLAMINGOES , DUCKS, AND SCREAMERS. 
The group of beautiful little ducks known as teal, while present¬ 
ing a great general resemblance to the pintails, are distinguished, 
in addition to their small size, by their much shorter necks, and the short and 
rounded tail of sixteen feathers, the scapulars of the male being also less 
pointed and elongated. The beak is about equal in length to the head, with its 
edges nearly parallel, and the lamellae very slightly exposed. In the foot the first 
toe is very short, and the fourth much shorter than the third. The common teal 
('Querquedula crecca ) is the best known representative of a group of the genus in 
which the nape of the neck in the male is ornamented with a small mane-like 
crest. In length this species measures only 141 inches; and in the ordinary 
plumage the male is characterised by the vermiculated markings of the back, the 
bright green band, bordered with buff, on the side of the head, the rest of the head 
chestnut, the wing-speculum black, green, and purple, tipped with white, and the 
breast white, spotted with black. The female has the upper plumage mainly 
of two shades of brown, and the wing-speculum mainly black, with but little 
green. This species is distributed over Europe and Asia generally, breeding in the 
British Islands, and visiting India and North Africa in the winter; while it 
occasionally occurs in Eastern North America. On the latter continent its place is 
taken by the American teal ( Q. carolinensis), distinguished by the presence of a 
broad white crescent on each side of the breast. The garganey, or summer-teal 
(Q. circia), is a larger bird representing a second group of the genus, in which the 
head is crestless, the bill longer, and the wing-coverts bluish. In the male, of 
which the length is from 15 to 16 inches, the plumage of the back is not 
vermiculated; the upper part of the head is dark brown, beneath which is a white 
stripe running above the eye and thence down the side of the neck; the wing- 
coverts are pale bluish grey, the wing-speculum dull green bordered with white; 
the front of the neck and breast brown, and the middle of the abdomen white. The 
garganey is a migratory species widely distributed over Europe and Asia, occasionally 
visiting the British Islands in spring, and wintering in the Mediterranean countries, 
India, China, Japan, etc. The American blue-winged teal ( Q. discolor) differs by the 
distinctly blue wing-coverts, the presence of a white crescent between the beak 
and the eye, and by the under tail-coverts being black, instead of white spotted 
with brown, in the male. The cinnamon teal (Q. cyanoptera) of Western America 
differs from the latter by the chestnut, instead of lead-coloured, head and neck of 
the male; and there are several other species, in some of which, such as the Asiatic 
clucking teal ( Q. formosa), the scapulars are elongated. 
The common teal breeds either among reeds and sedge on the 
margin of lakes and swamps, or on boggy moors; the nest being a 
large structure composed of water-plants, lined with feathers or down, and the 
number of eggs in a clutch varying from eight to ten in Britain, and from ten to 
fifteen in Lapland. When unmolested, teal feed both by night and day, but when 
much shot at they become mainly nocturnal feeders. In India, where they arrive 
by thousands in the cold season, teal frequent large sheets of water in the daytime, 
and resort to rice-fields and shallow marshes in the evening. Nearly as swift on 
the wing as pintail, teed, writes Mr. Hume, “turn and twist in the air with a 
rapidity second only to the cotton-teal, and they have a habit after being flushed 
348 
Teal. 
