March 10—Sunday was certainly "Teal Day" in the country, for in the course of a ten mile walk the birds seemed to me to spring up from every pond and creek, These are the "small duck" of the shooting world and I would like to pause a moment to examine their name: here we say Common Teal: in America they would be called Green-winged Teal: and science calls them Nettton cracca cracca, or to use the older name, Querquedula erecca, which Teally means "the quack-quack which is crake-like",..a phrase which, be it noted, throws no bouquets at the Teal's voice. And yet I could swear that as little groups of these birds went chasing each other through the springlike air, the sound they made was quite musical I was interested to read an American Writer on the subject of the Teal when he said, "the celerity with which it can vault into the air when alarmed is astonishing"; a statement which, if taken in conjunction with such remarks as the one I made above, that the birds "spring up from every pond and creek" will show why the Older writers always referred to "a spring of Teal" instead of a whisp, gaggle, skein or whatnot. But the little "springs" or flocks to which I refer must not be in any way confused with the immense flocks (or shall we say swarms?) of these birds which gather together in such places as the middle Yangtsze when the Teal are really off to their breeding grounds in the far North: La Touche writes of such a swarm at Shasi, "The noise made by the flight resembled that of an approaching earthquake, and the large Chinese building in which I was shook as the birds went over...in the dusk I noted that they extended from horizon to horizon." Such gigantic movements are not to be seen in our pent-up countryside: we only see the birds gathering together after their winter retreat and doing a little quiet feeding on any odd piece of water: for the Teal like Mrs; Gamp always likes to put his lips to a ife nourishment "when so dispoged."—Es.w,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.