Reptiles and Birds / A Popular Account of Their Various Orders, With a Description of the Habits and Economy of the Most Interesting

by Louis Figuier

The Common Teal.

English Synonyms.—Common Teal: Montagu, Selby. Green-winged Teal.

Latin Synonyms.—Anas crecca: Linn., Latham, Flemming, Temminck, Jenyns. Querquedula crecca: Bonaparte, Selby, McGillivray.

French Synonym.—Canard Sarcelle.

Fig. 94.—Common Teal (Anas crecca).

This is the smallest of the Duck kind known in the British Isles. It is a remarkably beautiful bird, and in colouring as well as in form closely resembles the Mallard, but is much smaller. It frequents marshy places and the margins of lakes and rivers, seldom betaking itself to estuaries or the sea-coast until frost sets in. It walks with ease, swims with great dexterity, flies rapidly, and is in all respects remarkable for its activity. It rises from the water or the land at once, and shoots away with great rapidity, so that the marksman who would bring it down must be very expert with his gun. It breeds in the long reedy grasses on the margin of lakes, or on upland moors and marshes. Its nest is a mass of decayed vegetable matter lined with down and feathers, in which it lays ten or twelve eggs, about an inch and three-quarters in length and an inch and a quarter in breadth. North of the Tay they are found occasionally all the year round, returning, according to Mr. St. John, year after year to breed, if left undisturbed in the process of incubation.

"If we compare," says Mr. McGillivray, "the Common Teal (Anas crecca, Linn.), with the Garganey (Anas circia), the Gadwall (Anas strepira), and the Pintail Duck (Anas acuta), we find slight differences in the form of the bill, in the elongated lamella of the upper mandible, in the length of the neck and tail; but they are all so intimately connected that, unless each species can be converted into a genus, there can be no reason for separating them." He classes them accordingly under the general name of Teal.

This bird makes its appearance in France in spring and autumn. It breeds in all the temperate climates of Europe, and pushes on towards the south as the winter advances.

Of the Teals there seem to be three, probably four, species, which in our climate may be divided into three—namely, the Common Teal, Anas crecca; the Summer Teal, Anas circia; and the Little Teal, or Black Diver, Anas nigra.

According to Columella, in his work "De Re Rustica," the Romans succeeded in domesticating the Teal; but the bird has reverted to an entirely wild state, which is much to be regretted, for it would have formed a valuable addition to the poultry-yard, the flesh of the Teal being held in great estimation.

The group of Ducks usually denominated Teal, Mr. Swainson has formed into the sub-genus Boschas, in which he also includes the Mallard, or Wild Duck. "As this is the most numerous group," says this writer, "so it exhibits a greater diversity of form among the species. They are all, however, characterised by a bill longer than the head, whose breadth is equal throughout; sometimes indeed a little dilated, but never contracted at the tip, while the laminæ of the upper mandible are entirely concealed by the margin of the bill." "The beautiful Anas formosa, which is essentially a Teal, differs," says a writer in the "Penny Cyclopædia," "in the greater length of the tail, thus connecting it more closely with the Pintail and other long-tailed species; while the bill, which is depressed in form in the Mallard as well as in the Common Duck, is convex, with projecting laminæ, in the Teal. Such is the case with the Blue-winged Teal of North America, in which the laminæ of the upper bill project nearly as much as in the Gadwall, while the upper mandible exhibits that sinuosity at the base which is seen in no other Duck except the Shoveller."

Mr. Selby says of the Common Teal: "I am inclined to think that our indigenous breeds seldom quit the immediate neighbourhood of the places in which they are bred, as I have repeatedly observed them to haunt the same district from the time of their being hatched till they separated and paired on the approach of the following spring. The Teal breeds in the long rushy herbage about the edges of lakes, or on the boggy parts of upland moors." Very few of them are found, according to Mr. McGillivray, in the south of Scotland during the summer months. In winter, one of his correspondents informs him, it unites in large flocks, the Drakes having then a whistle like the Plover; but it has not been heard to use this call during the breeding season. The boldness of the female in defence of her young is very affecting. Mr. St. John describes an instance which occurred in Ross-shire. He was riding along when an old Teal, with eight newly-hatched young ones, crossed the road. The youngsters could not climb the bank, and all squatted flat down while he passed. He dismounted, and carried all the young ones a little distance down the road to a ditch, the old bird fluttering about all the time, and frequently coming within reach of his whip. The part of the road where he found them passed through a thick fir-wood covered with rank heather, and it was a great puzzle to him how such little things, scarcely bigger than a mouse, could have struggled through it. Next day he saw them all enjoying themselves in a pond a little distance off, where a brood of Teal appeared every year.

Teal are less timid than the Wild Duck, and the sportsman, therefore, has not the same difficulty in getting within shot of them. They breed in great numbers in some of the Highland lochs, and Mr. St. John says that in August he has seen perfect clouds of them rise from some calm, glassy lake at the report of a gun.