DUCKS, GEESE, SWANS: GREEN-WINGED TEAL 121 
in spite of the encircling crowds of spectators and automobiles. Not 
only food but clean fresh drinking water is provided, and as Mr. Dixon 
says, in his “Lesson in Civic Ornithology,” they are assured of sanctuary 
and suitable loafing grounds (1927b, 329-334). 
In the marshes of Louisiana Mr. Job has found the Pintails nesting 
by thousands, their numbers having greatly increased since the stopping 
of spring shooting, which he justly denominates an “outrage against 
reason and conservation, now made an offense by Federal Law and by 
an International Treaty.” 
The longevity of wild birds is a subject about which so little is 
known that the records given by Mr. F. C. Lincoln in the Condor, 
obtained from a banded Pintail, are of peculiar interest. “ On September 
16, 1914, Dr. Alexander Wetmore banded an adult male Pintail . . . 
at the mouth of Bear River, Utah, using Biological Survey band no. 
519. This bird had been suffering from the duck sickness (alkali 
poisoning) and had been successfully treated and brought to complete 
recovery by Doctor Wetmore. It was killed on October 16 or 17, 1926, 
ten miles north of Brawley, California, by Mr. H. W. Seybert.” So 
the band was carried for over twelve years; as Mr. Lincoln says, “a 
most remarkable record, in view of the fact that each season it had run 
the gauntlet of hunters and also had escaped the poisonous alkali areas 
and other natural enemies” (1927a, p. 115). As the duck was adult 
when banded, it was at least thirteen years old when killed. Records 
from banded game birds found in New Mexico will of course be reported 
by sportsmen or whoever discovers them. 
Additional Litehatuius.—Bent, A. C., Auk., XIX, 4-7, 1902; U. S. Nat. 
Mus. Bull. 126, 144-156, 1923.— Bryant, H. C., Condor, XVI, 220-223, 1914.— 
Dixon, J. S., Nat. Geograpliic Magazine, vol. 39, 332-336, 1919; Bird-Lore, 329- 
334, 1927 (being fed at Lake Merritt).—J ob, II. K., Educational Leaflet 76, Nat. 
Assoc. Audubon Soc.— Kibbe, A. S., Condor, XXVII, 55-58, 173-174, 1925 (Lake 
Merritt, Oakland).— Lincoln, F. C., Condor, XXVI, 88-90, 1924 (banding and 
migration).— Rockwell, R. B., Condor, XIII, 186-189, 1911. 
GREEN-WINGED TEAL: Nettion carolinense (Gmelin) 
Description. — Length: 12.5-15 inches, wing 6.2-7.4, bill 1.4-1.6, tarsus 1.2. 
Weight: Early in season % lb.; wintering specimens to 5^ lb. (Leopold). Adult 
male in breeding plumage : l Head brown , with metallic, bright green patch from eye 
back to short crest; fore upperparts crossbarred, posterior upperparts, including 
tail, dark brown; wing with bright green Speculum (violet at certain angles), bordered 
by buffy brown and black; outer scapulars widely edged with black, making black 
streaks; higher underparts finely crossbarred with black and white, breast pinkish 
brown, spotted witli black and generally with white bar near bend of wing; belly 
white, under tail coverts black contrasting with creamy white patch each side of base 
of tail; iris brown, bill black, legs and toes grayish, webs blackish. Adult male in 
post nuptial eclipse: Similar to female but variable, head without green or brown, 
1 Mr. Aldo Leopold reports that near Albuquerque the adult male plumage (whether from the 
rnmature or the eclipse or both is not known) is acquired November 15-December 1. 
