Alfred Newton

“ While the female presents the usual inconspicuous mottled plumage of the same sex in most species of Anatinae, the male is one of the handsomest of his kind. His deep chestnut head and throat are diversified on either side by a line of buff, which, springing from the gape, runs upward to the eye, in front of which it forms a fork, one prong passing backward above and the other below, enclosing a dark glossy-green patch, and both losing themselves in the elongated feathers of the hind-head and nape. ”

“ The Teal is the Anas crecca of Linnaeus, Nettion crecca of modern ornithology, and the smallest of the European Anatidae, as well as one of the most abundant and highly esteemed for the table. It breeds in many parts of the British Islands, making its nest in places very like those chosen by the Wild Duck, A. boscas; but there is no doubt that by far the greater number of those that are taken in decoys, or are shot, during the autumn and winter are of foreign origin. ”

“ The teal inhabits almost the whole of Europe and Asia;—from Iceland to Japan,—in winter visiting Northern Africa and India. It occasionally occurs on the western shores of thei Atlantic; but its place in North America is taken by its representative, A. carolinensis, the male of which is easily to be recognized by the absence of the upper buff line on the side of the head and of the white scapular stripe, while he presents a whitish crescentic bar on the sides of the lower neck just in front of the wings. ”