The ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the county of Warwick Esq, fellow of the Royal Society in three books : wherein all the birds hitherto known, being reduced into a method sutable to their natures, are accurately described : the descriptions illustrated by most elegant figures, nearly resembling the live birds, engraven in LXXVII copper plates : translated into English, and enlarged with many additions throughout the whole work : to which are added, Three considerable discourses, I. of the art of fowling, with a description of several nets in two large copper plates, II. of the ordering of singing birds, III. of falconry / by John Ray ...

§. VI. The Teal, Querquedula secunda, Aldrov. p. 209.

THis, next to the Summer-Teal, is the least in the Duck-kind; weighing only twelve ounces, extended in length from the tip of the Bill to the end of the Feet fif∣teen inches; in breadth, measuring between the ends of the Wings spread, twenty four. Its Bill is broad, black, at the end something reflected upwards: The Eyes from white incline to hazel-coloured. The Nosthrils are of an oval figure. The top of the Head, Throat, and upper part of the Neck of a dark bay or spadiceous co∣lour. From the Eyes on each side to the back of the Head is extended a line of a dark, shining green. Between these lines on the back of the Head a black spot inter∣venes. Under the Eyes a white line separates the black from the red. The feathers investing the lower side of the Neck, the beginning of the Back, and the sides under the Wings are curiously varied with transverse waved lines of white and black. The region of the Craw in some is yellowish, elegantly spotted with black spots, so situate as somewhat to resemble scales. The Breast and Belly are of sordid white or grey colour. Under the Rump is a black spot encompassed with a yellowish colour.

Each Wing hath above twenty five quils. Of these the outmost ten are brown; the next five have white tips; under the white the exteriour Web of the Feather is black: In the sixteenth begins the green, and takes up so much of the feather as we said was black in the precedent three, The exteriour Web of the twenty third is black, with some yellowness on the edges. The covert-feathers of the black quils have white tips, of the green ones have tips of a reddish yellow: Else the Wings are all over brown [dusky.] The Tail is sharp-pointed, three inches long, made up of sixteen feathers, of a brown or dusky colour.

The Legs and Feet are of a pale dusky colour, the membrane connecting the Toes black: The inmost Toe the least. The Back-toe hath no fin annexed. The Wind∣pipe in the Cock is furnished with a Labyrinth: in the Hen we found none.

The Female differs from its Male in the same manner almost as the wild Duck does from the Mallard, having neither red nor green on the Head, nor black about its Rump: Nor those sine feathers variegated with white and black lines on the back and sides.

This Bird for the delicate taste of its flesh, and the wholsom nourishment it affords the body, doth deservedly challenge the first place among those of its kind.