In the southern States they are commonly taken, says Wilson, “in vast numbers, in traps placed on the small dry eminences that here and there rise above the water of the inundated rice fields. These places are strewed with rice, and by the common contrivance called a figure four, they are caught alive in hollow traps.” This we, of course, merely mention as illustrative of the habits of the bird; for, of course, no sportsman would dream of resorting to so worse than poacher-like a proceeding. The mode described by the eloquent pioneer of American natural history, is probably practised, for the most part, by the negroes for the supply of their masters’ table, and furnishing their own pockets with a little extra change, and is not used by the planters as a means of sport or amusement. It must be remembered, also, that Wilson, than whom there is no writer more to be relied on in matters which he relates of his own knowledge, and as occurring in his own days, must often be taken cum grano salis, as to the numbers of birds slain in this way or that within a certain time—things which he records, probably, on hearsay, and on which—we are sorry to say it—even good sportsmen, men who on any other subject would scorn to deviate one hair’s breadth from the truth, will not hesitate to draw a bow as long and as strong as Munchausen’s. Again, he writes of times when sporting was but little pursued, otherwise than as a method of procuring superior food for the table, or for the purpose of destroying noxious vermin and beasts of prey; when the rules of sportsmanship were little understood and as little regarded; and, lastly, when game abounded to a degree literally inconceivable in our day—although we have ourselves seen, with sorrow, the diminution, amounting in many regions around our large cities almost to extinction, of all birds and beasts—nay, but even fish of chase, within the last twenty years. We must be careful therefore not to charge exaggeration on a writer who, beyond a doubt, faithfully recorded that which he himself saw and enjoyed in his day; which we might see likewise and enjoy in our generation, and our children and grand-children after us, if it were not for the greedy, stupid, selfish, and brutal pot-hunting propensities of our population, alike rural of the country and mechanical of the cities, which seems resolutely and of set purpose bent on the utter annihilation of every species of game, whether of fur, fin or feather, which is yet found within our boundaries.
In my opinion, the common error of all American fowlers and duck shooters, lies, in the first place, in the overloading the gun altogether, causing it to recoil so much as to be exceedingly disagreeable and even painful, and in the same degree diminishing the effect of the discharge; for it must never be forgotten that when a gun recoils, whatever force is expended on the retrogressive motion of the breech, that same force is to be deducted from the propulsion of the charge. In the second place, he erroneously loads with extremely large and heavy shot, the result of which is, in two respects, inferior to that of a lighter and higher number. First, as there will be three or four pellets of No. 4 for every one pellet of A or B in a charge, and, consequently, as the load is thereby so much the more regularly distributed, and so much the more likely to strike the object, and that in several places more, in the ratio of three or four to one, than could be effected by A’s or B’s. Second, as the flesh will constantly close over the wound made by a small shot, so as to cause the bleeding to go on internally to the engorgement of the tissues and suffocation by hemorrhage; whereas the wound made by the large grain will relieve itself by copious bleeding, and the bird so injured will oftentimes recover, after having fallen even to the surface of the water, or lain flapping, as it were, in the death-struggle on the blood-stained sand or grassy hassocks. This fact has been well noticed, and several examples adduced to prove its truth, by Mr. Giraud, in his exceedingly clear and correct, though, to our taste, far too brief volume on the “Birds of Long Island.”
For my own use I invariably adopt for all the smaller species of duck—as the two varieties of Teal, the Summer Duck, the Golden Eye, and the Buffel-headed Duck, Anates, Carolinensis, Discors, Sponsa, and Fuligulæ, Clanguid, and Albeola—the same shot which is generally used for the various birds known on our shores and rivers as bay-snipe, viz: No. 4 or 5—the latter best for the Plovers, the former for duck, whether in large or small guns. In this relation I may observe that, on one occasion—the only one, by the way, on which I ever saw a green-winged teal in the summer season—I killed a couple of these beautiful birds, right and left, while woodcock shooting, in Orange County, New York, with No. 8 shot. They sprang quite unexpectedly from behind a willow bush, on the Wuwayanda creek, and I dropped them both quite dead, some what to my own astonishment, and to the utter astounding of Fat Tom, who witnessed it, into the middle of the stream, respectively at twenty and twenty-five yards distance. Until I recovered them I supposed that they were young wood ducks, but on examination they proved to be young green-winged teal, of that season, in their immature plumage. This must have been in the last week of July or the first of August—it was many years since, and as at that time I kept no shooting diary, I unfortunately am unable to verify the exact date. The birds must, I conclude, have been bred in that vicinity, by what means I cannot conjecture, unless that the parent birds might have been wounded in the spring, and disabled from completing their northern migration, and that this, as is some times the case with the minor birds of passage, might have superinduced their breeding in that, for them, far southern region. In corroboration of this I may add that, in the spring of 1846, a couple of these birds haunted a small reedy island in front of my house, on the Passaic, to so late a day in summer—the 29th, if I do not err, of May—that I sedulously avoided disturbing them, in the hope that they would breed there. This I yet think would have been the case but for the constant disturbance of that lovely river throughout the summer by gangs of ruffianly loafers, with whom the neighboring town of Newark abounds beyond any other town of its size in the known world, boating upon its silvery surface day and night, and rendering day and night equally hideous with their howls and blasphemies.
Before proceeding to the description of these birds it is well to observe that it will be found the better way, in approaching them, as indeed all wild fowl, to work, if possible, up wind to them; not that wild fowl have the power, as some pretend, of scenting the odor of the human enemy on the tainted gale, as is undoubtedly the case with deer and many other quadrupeds, but that their hearing is exceedingly acute, and that their heads are pricked up to listen, at the occurrence of the least unusual sound, and at the next moment—hey, presto!—they are off.
The little cut at the head of this paper, for his spirited and faithful execution of which the author and artist must be permitted to return his acknowledgments to his friend, Mr. Brightly, represents a favorite feeding ground of the various tribes of water fowl, as is indicated by the large gaggle of geese passing over, from right to left, and the trip of green-wings alighting to the call of a clamorous drake in the background. On a rocky spur of the shore, in the right foreground, is a male Green-Winged Teal, in the act of springing, with his legs already gathered under him; and, still nearer to the front of the picture, on the right, a Blue-Winged Drake, swimming on the limpid water, soliciting his congener, with reverted neck, and the harsh gabble—whence his name—to take wing and greet the new-comers—it being the object of the draftsman to give an idea not merely of the markings and form of these two most beautiful and graceful of the duck tribe, but of their motions, the character of their flights, and the nature of their feeding grounds and habitations.
The head of the Green-Winged Teal is of moderate size and compressed; the bill nearly as long as the head, deeper than broad at the base, depressed at the tip; neck slender, of moderate length; body full and depressed; wings rather small, feet short and rather far back.
The plumage is short and blended; that of the hinder head and neck elongated into a soft filamentous drooping crest. The bill is black; iris hazel; feet light blue; head and upper part of neck bright chestnut brown; a broad band of shining rich bottle-green, narrowings from the eye backward and downward to the nape, margined below with black, anterior to which is a white line; chin dusky brown. Upper parts and flanks white, beautifully and closely undulated with narrow lines of deep gray. Anterior to the wings is a broad transverse lunated white bar—this alone distinguishing the American from the European bird. The wing coverts, scapulars and quills gray. The speculum bright green above, blue-black below, margined posteriorly with pure white. Tail brownish gray, margined with paler brown. Lower part of the neck undulated, like the back. Breast pale rufous, spotted and banded with black; white below. Abdomen white, barred with gray. A black patch under the tail; the lateral tail coverts tawny, the larger black, white-tipped and margined. Length of male bird, 14¾.24. Female, 13¾.22½.
The description and drawing of this bird are taken, by kind permission, which the writer gratefully acknowledges, from a fine specimen in the Academy of Natural Science of this city.
The Blue-Winged Teal is rather larger than the above, the male measuring 16.31½, the female 15.24.
The shape and proportions of this bird closely resemble those of the latter, but in plumage it widely differs from it. The bill is blueish black; iris dark hazel; feet dull yellow, webs dusky; upper part of the head black, a semilunar patch of pure white, margined with black anterior to the eye; the rest of the head and upper neck deep purplish gray, with changeable ruddy reflections. The lower hind neck, back, alula, and upper parts generally, rich chocolate brown, every feather margined with paler tints, from reddish buff to pale reddish gray, with black central markings, changing to metallic green in the centres. Upper wing coverts rich ultra-marine blue, with a metallic lustre; the lower parts pale reddish orange, shaded on the breast with purplish red, and thickly spotted with roundish or eliptical black spots; axillary feathers, lower wing coverts, and a patch on the side of the rump, pure white; lower tail coverts brownish black.