Alfred Newton

“ The Teal is the Anas crecca of Linnæus, and the smallest of the European Anatidæ, 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. While the female presents the usual inconspicuous mottled plumage of the same sex in most species of Anatinæ, 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 back and sides of the body appear to be grey, an effect produced by delicate transverse pencillings of black on a dull white ground. ”

“ In ordinary talk “Teal” seems to stand for any Duck-like bird of small size, and in that sense the word is often applied to the members of the genus Nettopus, though systematists will have it that they are properly Geese. ”