142.  TEAL. Querquedula crecca, Linnaeus.  French, “Sarcelle d’hiver.”—­Like the Wild Duck, the Teal is a regular but never numerous visitant to all the Islands.  A few make their appearance in the Guernsey market in October and November, and occasionally through the winter; but Teal do not, as a rule, add much to the Guernsey sportsman’s bag.  In November, 1871, a friend of mine told me that, after a long day’s shooting from daylight till dark, he succeeded in bagging one Teal and one Woodcock.  I was rather glad I was not with him on this occasion, but chose the wild shooting on the shore, where I got one or two Golden Plovers, and Turnstone and Ring Dotterel enough for a pie—­and, by-the-bye, a very good pie they made.

Professor Ansted includes the Teal in his list, and marks it as occurring in Guernsey and Sark.  There is no specimen in the Museum at present.

143.  EIDER DUCK. Somateria mollissima, Linnaeus.  French, “Canard eider,” “Morillon eider.”—­The Eider Duck occasionally straggles to the Channel Islands in the autumn, but very seldom, and the majority of those that do occur are in immature plumage.  I have one immature bird, killed in Guernsey in the winter of 1876; and that is the only Channel Island specimen that has come under my notice, and I think almost the only one Mr. Couch had had through his hands.

The Eider Duck is included in Professor Ansted’s list, and marked as occurring in Guernsey.  The King Eider is also included in the list, but no letter marking the distribution through the Islands is given, and no information beyond the mere name, so I should think in all probability this must have been a mistake, especially as I can find no other evidence whatever of its occurrence.  There is no specimen of either bird in the Museum.

144.  COMMON SCOTER. Oidemia nigra, Linnaeus.  French, “Macreuse,” “Canard macreuse.”—­The Scoter is a common autumn and winter visitant to all the Islands, generally making its appearance in considerable flocks; sometimes, however, the flocks get broken up, and single birds may then be seen scattered about in the more sheltered bays.  Some apparently remain till tolerably late in the spring as Mr. MacCulloch wrote me word that a pair of Scoters were killed in the last week in April, 1878, off the Esplanade; he continues, “I had only a cursory glance of them as I was passing through the market in a hurry, and I am not sure they were not Velvet Scoters.  The male had a great deal of bright yellow about the nostrils.”  Mr. MacCulloch, however, told me afterwards, when I asked him more about them, and especially whether he had seen any white about the wing, that he had not seen any white whatever about them, so I have but little doubt that they were Common Scoters, and he could hardly have failed to be struck by the conspicuous white bar on the wing, by which the Velvet Scoter, both male and female, may immediately be distinguished from the Common Scoter.  As on the South Coast of Devon or Dorset, a few scattered Scoters—­non-breeding birds, of course—­remain throughout the summer.  I have one, a male, killed off Guernsey on July 19th:  this bird is in that peculiar state of plumage which all the males of the Anatidae put on from about July to October, and in which many of them look so like the females.