Jan. 4, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
11 
growth and tangle impenetrable. The soil is 
rich, the countr}' well watered, and admirably 
fitted for occupancy; but here the mistake of 
the Colony has full swaj'—the mistake of non- 
occupanc3'. Holdings of sometimes as much as 
one hundred thousand of acres owned by 
absentees, who, seated far away, presumably 
pay the half penny an acre yearly rent, for 
which they secured their long lease and do 
nothing for the conntrJ^ 
Nor is this true of the large holdings, or 
syndicate holdings only. It is true of the small 
(sic) farmer of 2,500 acres or more. Then 
and there, at intervals of several miles, you 
see ground broken, a tiny farm building, a belt 
of flourishing trees, a band of sheep or cattle. 
But as for the larger number of granted farms 
not a furrow has been turned, not a penny 
spent. And thus it comes about that absentees 
who do nothing to improve the value of the 
land are gaining greatly by the hard pioneering 
work of those who are developing the country, 
while they pay nothing, practically, for what 
they gain. 
This state of things, one would think, must 
soon become apparent to the powers that be. 
.\nd as no young colony could possibly stand 
in more need of money than does this, the 
government will supply themselves with funds, 
and at the same time promote the advancement 
of the Protectorate by insisting that settlement 
be bona fide; that the settler settle, or pay 
some one else to do improvements for him, or 
failing that, surrender the land. At present a 
comparative few, working hard and taking 
many risks to health and fortune, are rapidly 
pushing up land values for an absent many who 
are speculating on these rising land values. A 
tax on unimproved land would bring this state 
of things to an end. 
Any reasonable man acquainted with the 
changes and chances that beset the youth of 
a colony, more especially an African colony, 
will be prepared to approve a policy that gives 
liberally to the “pioneer.” His path to success 
is difficult enough in all conscience. But here the 
pioneer period is over — the land wants developing. 
It cannot be developed so.long as absentees are 
permitted, as now they are, to lock up tens of 
thousands of acres on which nothing whatever 
has been done—thousands of the very choicest 
acres—while really- bona fide settlers are de¬ 
manding farms in vain, or have to satisfy them¬ 
selves with land of very inferior quality. 
The development of the colony depends 
actually on the success of the young settler in 
securing the aid of the native. Of all questions 
none is perhaps more important than this one 
of native labor. 
To an ousider like myself, the East African 
native seems, taking him all in all, an extra- 
ordinarilj' docile creature. And when you con¬ 
sider that he has never worked for a white 
rnan, never done anything but cultivate, or have 
his wife cultivate his little stamba; that no 
white settler pretends to speak his language; 
that the medium of communication between the 
two is Swahili, which the settler speaks most 
imperfectly and which the native only under¬ 
stands and talks imperfectly, if at all, it surely 
is not surprising that difficulties arise. 
There are those who deny the good qual¬ 
ities of the various native tribes (for workers in 
the Protectorate must be drawn from many 
tribes); those who have onl}^ blame for them. 
But I ha\'e satisfied myself that they are almost 
always young men, who know nothing of other 
indigenous races, and have had no experience 
of native labor in other lands. Give the East 
African a little time to fit himself to the utterly 
new conditions that the white man’s coming 
forces on him, and it seems certain he will be 
found ready and willing to do his part, and it 
is a great part in developing the wonderful 
capacities of the land. Most of the settlers are 
young, and they are not always patient. 
In the mean time, while land policy and 
native labor policy are haltingly declaring them¬ 
selves, who can help admiring the men, most 
of them in the vigor of youth, who are staking 
their all — all their small fortunes and their 
young health — in order to win a modest com¬ 
petence. 
Plere on these uplands of equatorial Africa 
you find them. Some few wasters, of course, 
you may pick out. Some who hang round 
Nairobi, depending on remittance from home 
that only do them harm when they come; but 
far more are seldom seen in that demoralizing 
little town. 
They have set their faces hard to win a 
living from the rich pasture lands of the higher 
country, or are superintending anxiously the 
growth of sisal, rubber, or coffee plantations 
on lower lands nearer the sea, or the great 
lakes. The unknown, the unexpected, must 
for years still threaten every new venture of 
the industry. May good luck attend them. If 
thej" make money, none has better deserved it. 
The risks they face are many. The rewards 
awaiting them if they succeed are modest in¬ 
deed. Taking them all in all — and I have 
wandered far among them for almost two years 
— they do honor to the race they own. 
The Wild Duck Family. 
Tbe Teal; Its Haunts and Habits. 
BY W. J. MURRAY. 
This is one of the smallest and at the same 
time one of the most beautiful members of the 
freshwater duck family, of which there are 
numerous varieties distributed over Europe, 
.\sia, Africa and both North and South America 
and even as far as the Falkland Islands. 
The teal very much resembles the common 
river duck (although not more than half its 
size) not only in its plumage, but in its habits 
and mode of life, frequenting lakes, swamps, 
marshes and rivers; feeding on frogs, small 
lizards, mollusks, water insects and vegetable 
matter, etc. In such surroundings as here de¬ 
scribed the teal makes her nest in which she 
generally deposits about a dozen eggs of a light 
greenish blue color, and as she hatches them 
she sits unobserved among the reeds, surrounded 
with withered grass or rushes, which together 
with some of her own brown soft feathers forms 
her nest. The teal when undisturbed feeds in 
the day time, but otherwise at night only. 
’ The European green-winged teal (Anas 
creccoA is widely distributed all over Europe and 
Asia, including India, where during the cold 
season they are captured in great numbers and 
kept alive in “tealeries” for use in the ensuing 
summer months. This teal visits Northern 
Africa in winter, but is seldom to be found in 
the Eastern United States. 
The blue-winged teal (Anas discors) is plen¬ 
tiful from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. The male bird has the head and neck a 
blackish lead color darkest on the crown, a white 
crescent on the front of the eye and the under 
parts white spotted with brown. The female is 
a dullish brown streaked with buff. In both 
sexes there are sky blue wing coverts. 
The cinnamon teal (Anas cyanoptera) is a 
South American duck, strictly speaking, but it 
is to be found in the Southwestern States of 
America and ranges from the Columbus River 
to Chile, Argentine and as far as the Falkland 
Islands. It goes as far north as Oregon and 
eastward to Illinois. It varies from the blue¬ 
winged teal in having a chestnut or cinnamon - 
colored head and neck, but it resembles it in 
having blue wing coverts. 
The green-winged teal (Anas carolinense), 
which is a very fine bird, is quite common in 
North America. It is almost the same as the 
common teal of the same designation, frequent¬ 
ing Southern Europe. 
All teals seem to prefer a temperate, but 
cool climate, and being migratory in their habits 
they manage to adjust themselves to the changes 
of temperature by going to the tropics for the 
winter, and to Northern countries for the sum¬ 
mer. When in the United States they are timid 
and quiet, and for the most part nocturnal in 
their habits. 
In Europe and especially in the British Isles 
there is probably no game bird more highly 
prized not only for the sport it affords the fowler, 
but also on account of its excellent table quali¬ 
ties and the beauty of its plumage. 
While the female presents the usual incon¬ 
spicuous mottled plumage of her sex (in most 
other species), the male is one of the hand¬ 
somest of his kind. His deep chestnut-colored 
head and throat are diversified on both sides by 
a line of buff which, springing from the gape, 
runs upward to the eye in front of wdiich is 
formed a fork, one prong passing hindward and 
up and the other downward, inclosing a dark 
lustrous green patch and both coalescing in the 
feathers of the back part of the head and nape. 
The back and sides of the body appear to be 
of a dullish gray. The breast is of a pale 
salmon color. The tail coverts and underneath 
are a velvety black, while those at the side are 
of a pale orange color. Altogether the teal 
drake (or mallard, as it is often called) is a 
bird of e.xceptional beauty and interest. 
The teal is fairly plentiful in the marshy 
lakes and bogs of Ireland, where considerable 
numbers of them breed every year. During the 
early part of the winter they frequent the reeds 
and rush-grown shores of the lakes where they 
are not easy to approach, and having plenty of 
food they need not come out into the open 
danger for foraging purposes. When frost sets 
in, however, they become somewhat tamer and 
less wary, and they take to the running streams, 
selecting those with plent\' of reeds and bull- 
rushes on their banks. Here they conceal them¬ 
selves closely while they are feeding, and some¬ 
times the sportsman comes on them unawares 
and “bags” a few in this way, but the surviving 
birds soon take wing for a more distant and re¬ 
tired feeding ground. When teal leave the lakes 
for the running streams in time of frost they 
