TEAL AND TEAL SHOOTING. 
257 
all the marshy lakes and pools, and along the shores of all 
the reedy rivers from the great lakes downward to the sea¬ 
board, though, like the last named species, it is purely a 
fresh-water duck, never frequenting the sea-shores or 
salt bays, finding no tood thereon with which to gratify 
its delicate and fastidious palate, which, eschewing fish, 
the larvrn of insects, and the lesser crustacece, relishes 
only the seeds of the various water plants and grasses, 
the tender leaves of some vegetables, and more especially 
the grain of the wild rice, Zizania pmicula effusa, which 
is its favorite article of subsistence, and one to which 
may be ascribed the excellence of every bird of air or 
water which feeds on it, from the Rice-Bird and the Rail, 
to the Teal, the Canvas-Back, and even the large Thick- 
Billed Fuligula , closely allied to the Scoter, the Velvet 
Duck, and other uneatable sea-fowl of Lake Huron, 
which are scarcely, if at all, inferior to the Red Heads of 
Chesapeake Bay, the Gunpowder, or the Potomac. On 
the Susquehanna and the Delaware, both these beautiful 
little ducks were in past years excessively abundant, so 
that a good gunner, paddling one of the sharp, swift skiffs 
peculiar to those waters, was certain of filling his boat 
with these delicious ducks within a few hours’ shooting. 
Both of these species are rather tame than otherwise, the 
blue-winged bird more particularly, which has a habit, on 
the lower waters of the Delaware especially, of congre¬ 
gating on the mud in vast flocks, sunning themselves in 
the serene and golden light of a September noon, so care¬ 
less and easy of approach, that the gunner is frequently 
enabled to paddle his skiff within a few yards of them, and 
to rake them with close discharges of his heavy batteries. 
At times, when the tide is out, and the birds are assembled 
on the flats out of gunshot from the water’s edge, the 
thorough-going sportsman, reckless of wet feet or muddy 
breeches, will run his skiff ashore, several hundred yards 
above or below the flock, and getting cautiously overboard, 
will push it before him over the smooth, slippery mud-flats, 
keeping himself carefully concealed under its stern until 
within gunshot, which he can sometimes reduce to so little 
as fifteen or twenty yards, by this murderous and stealthy 
method. The Green-Winged Teal is much less apt to con¬ 
gregate, especially on shore, than the other, and conse¬ 
quently, aflbrds less sport to the boat-shooter, keeping for 
the most part afloat in little companies, or trips, as they are 
technically called, very much on the alert, and springing 
rapidly on the wing when disturbed. They, and the Blue- 
Wings also, fly very rapidly, dodging occasionally on the 
wing, not unlike to a wild, sharp-flying Woodcock, and 
when they alight, darting downward with a short, sudden 
twist among the reeds or rushy covert, exactly after the 
fashion of the same bird. 
The commoner and, in our opinion—where these birds 
are abundant either along the courses of winding drains 
or streamlets, or in large reedy marshes, with wet soil 
and occasional pools or splashes—far the more exciting 
way of killing them is to go carefully and warily on foot, 
with a good medium-sized double-gun. say of eight to ten 
pounds weight, and a thoroughly well broke and steady 
spaniel, to retrieve and occasionally to flush the birds, 
which will sometimes, though rarely, lie very hard. A 
good sportsman will frequently, thus late in the autumn, 
when the mornings are sharp and biting, and the noons 
warm and hazy, but before the ice makes, pick up, on 
favorable ground, his eight or nine couple in a day’s 
walking, with a chance of picking up at the same time a 
few Snipe, Golden Plovers, Curlew, or Godwit; and this, 
in our mind, is equal to slaughtering a boat load by sneak¬ 
ing up in ambush to within twenty yards of a great com¬ 
pany, whistling to make them lift their heads and ruffle 
up their loosened plumage, so as to give easy entrance to 
the shot, and then pouring into them at half point-blank 
range, a half pound of heavy shot. 
In the southern States they are commonly taken, says 
Wilson, “in vast numbers, in traps placed on the small 
dry eminences that here and there rise above the water of 
the inundated rice fields. These places are strewed with 
rice, and by the common contrivance called a figure four, 
they are caught alive in hollow traps.” This we, of 
course, merely mention as illustrative of the habits of the 
bird ; for, of course, no sportsman would dream of resort¬ 
ing to so worse than poacher-like a proceeding. The mode 
described by the eloquent pioneer of American natural his¬ 
tory, is probably practised, for the most part, by the ne¬ 
groes for the supply of their masters’ table, and furnish¬ 
ing their own pockets with a little extra change, and is not 
used by the planters as a means of sport or amusement. 
It must be remembered, also, that Wilson, than whom 
there is no writer more to be relied on in matters which 
he relates of his own knowledge, and as occurring in his 
own days, must often be taken cum grano satis , as to the 
numbers of birds slain in this way or that within a certain 
time—things which he records, probably, on hearsay, and 
on which—we are sorry to say it—even good sportsmen, 
men who on any other subject would scorn to deviate one 
hair’s breadth from the truth, will not hesitate to draw a 
bow as long and as strong as Munchausen’s. Again, he 
writes of times when sporting was but little pursued, 
otherwise than as a method of procuring superior food for 
the table, or for the purpose of destroying noxious vermin 
and beasts of prey; when the rules of sportsmanship were 
little understood and as little regarded; and, lastly, when 
game abounded to a degree literally inconceivable in our 
day—although we have ourselves seen, with sorrow, the 
diminution, amounting in many regions around our large 
cities almost to extinction, of all birds and beasts—nay-, 
but even fish of chase, within the last twenty years. We 
must be careful therefore not to charge exaggeration on 
a writer who, beyond a doubt, faithfully recorded that 
which he himself saw and enjoyed in his day; which we 
might see likewise and enjoy in our generation, and our 
children and grand children after us, if it were not for the 
greedy, stupid, selfish, and brutal pot-hunting propensities 
of our population, alike rural of the country and mecha¬ 
nical of the cities, which seems resolutely and of set pur¬ 
pose bent on the utter annihilation of every species of 
game, whether of fur, fin or feather, which is yet found 
within our boundaries. 
In my opinion, the common error of all American fowlers 
and duck shooters, lies, in the first place, in the over¬ 
loading the gun altogether, causing it to recoil so much 
as to be exceedingly disagreeable and even painful, and in 
the same degree diminishing the effect of the discharge ; 
for it must never be forgotten that when a gun recoils, 
whatever force is expended on the retrogressive motion of 
the breech, that same force is to be deducted from the 
propulsion of the charge. In the second place, he errone¬ 
ously loads with extremely large and heavy shot, the re¬ 
sult of which is, in two respects, inferior to that of a 
lighter and higher number. First, as there will be three 
or four pellets of No. 4 for every one pellet of A or B in 
a charge, and, consequently, as the load is thereby so 
much the more regularly distributed, and so much the 
more likely to strike the object, and that in several places 
more, in the ratio of three or four to one, than could be 
effected by A’s or B’s. Second, ns the flesh will con¬ 
stantly close over the wound made by a small shot, so as 
to cause the bleeding to go on internally to the engorge¬ 
ment of the tissues and suffocation by hemorrhage; where¬ 
as the wound made by the large grain will relieve itself 
by copious bleeding, and the bird so injured will often- 
