TEAL AND TEAL SHOOTING 
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC. 
THE GREEN -WINGED TEAL. {Anas Uarolitiensis.) 
THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL. {Anas Discors.) 
In this present month, the sport of duck-shooting on the 
inland streams, rivers, and lakelets, may be held to com¬ 
mence in earnest, as contrasted to the pursuit of the same 
tribes on the outer bays, estuaries, and surf-banks. About 
the end of September, and thenceforth through this and 
the next ensuing month, according to the variations of 
the seasons, and the longer or shorter endurance of that 
delicious time, the most delicious and most gorgeous of 
the whole American year, known throughout this con¬ 
tinent as Indian Summer, the Mallard, and the two beau¬ 
tiful species which we have placed at the head of this 
article, begin to make their appearance on the little lakes 
of the interior, and in the various streams and rivers 
which fall into them, and thence downward to the Atlantic 
seaboard. 
In the vast northern solitudes of the great lakes of the 
northwest, in all the streams of Upper Canada, even to 
the feeders of Lake Superior, and throughout the western 
country so far south as Texas, and northward to the 
Columbia and the fur countries, the Blue-Winged Teal 
breeds, literally by myriads. Throughout the great lakes, 
it is abundant in the early autumn, becoming excessively 
fat on the seed of the wild rice, with which the shallows 
of all those waters are overgrown, and being deservedly 
esteemed as one of the best, if not the very best, of the 
duck tribe. But it is the first of its race to remove from 
the wild, limpid waters, and wood-embosomed rivers of 
the great west, to the seaboard tide-waters, taking the 
inland water-courses on their route, rarely visiting the 
actual sea-shores, and proceeding on the occurrence of the 
first frosts, for they are singularly susceptible of cold, to 
the Southern States, where they swarm, especially in the 
inundated rice-fields of Georgia and South Carolina, during 
the winter months. 
The Green-AYinged Teal, which is the nearest congener, 
and frequently the associate of the Blue-Wing, has a far 
less extensive range, so far as regards its breeding-grounds, 
in as much as it never, so far as has been satisfactorily 
shown, has nidificated or produced its young south of the 
Great Lakes, nor even there in great numbers, its favorite 
haunts, for the purposes of reproduction, being the ex¬ 
treme northern swamps and wooded morasses almost up 
to the verge of the arctic circles. It does not come down 
on its southward migration, at nearly so early a period of 
the autumn as its congener, being less susceptible of cold, 
and tarrying on the Great Lakes till the frosts set in with 
sufficient severity to prevent its frequenting its favorite 
haunts with pleasure, or obtaining its food with facility. 
It is rarely or never seen in the Middle States during the 
summer, but is tolerably abundant during the autumn on 
