TEAL. 
411 
dry grass, they are outwardly constructed, and lined two 
inches thick with the softest down, kept together by 
having bits of heath and the stalks of grass interwoven 
with it. One of them is a very beautiful object, each 
separate piece of the down with which it is lined being 
outwardly of a dark brown with a pure white centre. 
Mr. W. M. Tuke has found the eggs of the Teal on 
Strensall Common, an extensive waste near York, and 
very much like the one I have just described; they 
were placed, without any nest, under the shelter of a 
piece of furze. 
Mr. Proctor met with many of the nests of this bird in 
Iceland, amongst the long herbage bordering the margins 
of the smaller ponds. 
Temminck, though usually very accurate, is under a 
strange mistake in describing the eggs of this bird when 
he says they are of a rosy white, indistinctly spotted 
with brown ! 
