available in India and Burma is considerable, and every endeavour is
made to conserve it and increase its production. Similar measures
have been taken in Siam under the advice of officers borrowed from
British India; and in the teak-producing native states in the
peninsula the necessity for careful management is now well understood.
The teak plantations in java had come into bearing by
1908 and it was expected that the teak areas in the Philippine Islands
would be similarly developed.
(D. Br; J. S. Ga.)
TEAL (O.E. tele), a variety of duck, whose name is of uncertain origin, but doubtless cognate with the Dutch Taling (formerly Talingh and Telingh), and this apparently with the Scandinavian Atteling-And (Brünnich, Ornithol. Borealis, p. 18) and Atling. It seems impossible not to connect the latter with the Scottish Atteile or Atteal, to be found in many old records, though this last word (however it be spelt) is generally used in conjunction with teal, as if to mean a different kind of bird; and commentators have shown a marvellous ineptitude in surmising what that bird was.
The Teal is the Anas crecca of Linnaeus, Nettion crecca of modern ornithology, and the smallest of the European Anatidae, as well as one of the most abundant and highly esteemed for the table. It breeds in many parts of the British Islands, making its nest in places very like those chosen by the Wild Duck, A. boscas; but there is no doubt that by far the greater number of those that are taken in decoys, or are shot, during the autumn and winter are of foreign origin. While the female presents the usual inconspicuous mottled plumage of the same sex in most species of Anatinae, the male is one of the handsomest of his kind. His deep chestnut head and throat are diversified on either side by a line of buff, which, springing from the gape, runs upward to the eye, in front of which it forms a fork, one prong passing backward above and the other below, enclosing a dark glossy-green patch, and both losing themselves in the elongated feathers of the hind-head and nape. The back and sides of the body appear to be grey, an effect produced by delicate transverse pencillings of black on a dull white ground. The outer lanceolate scapulars have one-half of their webs pure white, forming a conspicuous stripe along the side of the back. The breast is of a pale salmon or peach-blossom colour, each feather in front bearing a roundish dark spot, but these spots lessen in number and size lower down, and the warm tint passes into white on the belly. The tail coverts above and below are velvety black, but those at the side are pale orange.
The teal inhabits almost the whole of Europe and Asia;—from Iceland to Japan,—in winter visiting Northern Africa and India. It occasionally occurs on the western shores of thei Atlantic; but its place in North America is taken by its representative, A. carolinensis, the male of which is easily to be recognized by the absence of the upper buff line on the side of the head and of the white scapular stripe, while he presents a whitish crescentic bar on the sides of the lower neck just in front of the wings.
Species more or less allied to these two are found in most other parts of the world, and among such species are some (for instance, the N. gibberifrons of the Australian region) in which the male wears the same inconspicuous plumage as the female. But the determination of the birds which should be technically considered “Teals,” and belong to the genus Nettion, as distinguished from other groups of Anatinae, is a task not yet successfully attempted, and much confusion has been caused by associating with them such species as the Garganey (q.v.) and its allies of the group Querquedula. Others again have not yet been discriminated from the Wigeons (q.v.), the Pintail-Ducks, Dafila, or even from the typical form of Anas (see Duck), into each of which genera the Teals seem to pass without any great break. In ordinary talk “ Teal ” seems to stand for any Duck-like bird of small size, and in that sense the word is often applied to the members of the genus Nettopus, though some systematists will have it that they are properly Geese. In the same loose sense the word is often applied to the two most beautiful of the family Anatidae, belonging to the genus Aes (commonly misspelt Aix)—the Carolina Duck of North America, Ae. sponsa (not to be confounded with the above-named Anas carollnensis or Nellion carolinense), and the Mandarin-Duck of China, Ae. galericulata. Hardly less showy than these are the two species of the subgenus Eunella,—the Falcated Duck, E. falcata, and the Baikal Teal, E. formosa,—both from Eastern Asia, but occasionally appearing in Europe. Some British authors have referred to the latter of these well-marked species certain Ducks that from time to time occur, but they are doubtless hybrids, though the secret of their parentage may be unknown; and in this way a so-called Bimaculated Duck, Anas bimaculata, was for many years erroneously admitted as a good species to the British list, but of late this has been properly discarded. (A. N.)
TEANO (anc. Teanum Sidicinum), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 21 m. N .W. of that town on the main line to Rome from Naples, forming conjointly with Calvi an episcopal see. Pop. (1901) 6067 (town), 13,505 (commune). It stands at the S.E. foot of an extinct volcano Rocca Monfina (3297 ft.), 643 ft. above sea-level. The cathedral dates from 1530, but has many columns obtained from the ruins of the ancient town. There is a feudal castle built by the dukes of Sessa in the 15th century. Below the town on the S.E. is the old church of S. Paride.
The ancient Teanum Sidicinum (there is a Teanum Apulum, q.v., in Apulia) was the capital of the Oscan tribe of the Sidicini which drove the Aurunci from Rocca Monfina. They probably submitted to Rome in 334 B.C. and their troops were grouped with those of Campania in the Roman army. Thus the garrison of Regium, which in 280 attacked the citizens, consisted of one cohort of Sidicini and two of Campanians. Like Cales, Teanum continued to have the right of coinage, and, like Suessa and Cales, remained faithful to Rome in both the Hannibalic and the Social wars. Its position gave it some military importance, and it was apparently made a colony by Claudius, not by Augustus. Strabo speaks of it as the most important town on the Via Latina, and only coming after Capua among the towns in the interior of Campania. It lay on the Via Latina, here joined by a branch road from Suessa, of which remains still exist, and which continued E. to Allifae. Remains of a theatre and an amphitheatre still exist, and some extensive baths, containing several statues, and some Roman dwellings. both some way below the modern town, were excavated in 1908. A tomb with a Christian mosaic representing the visit of the three kings to Bethlehem was found in 1907 (V. Spinazzola in Notizie degli Scavi, 1907, 697; E. Gabrici, ibid., 1908, 399).
TEANUM APULUM, an ancient town of Apulia, Italy, on the road between Larinum and Sipontum, 18 m. E. of the former, at the crossing of the Fortore near the modern village of S. Paolo di Civitate. It was called Teate in earlier times, as appears from its numerous coins, which have Oscan legends. It submitted to Rome in 318 B.C., being then the chief town of Apulia. It was afterwards known as Teanum Apulum, and was a municipium. Some ruins and an old bridge over the Fortore still exist.
TEA-POY (Hindustani tēpāi), a small table, supported upon a tripod, or even upon four legs, for holding a tea-service or an urn. The word was also sometimes applied to a large porcelain or earthenware tea-caddy, and more frequently to the small bottles, often of Battersea enamel, which fitted into receptacles in the caddy and actually contained the tea.
TEAR, a drop of the liquid secretion of the lachrymal gland, constantly produced in a certain quantity and flowing through the nasal duct without notice, but, when stimulated by pain, emotion or artificial excitation, increasing so that it fiows over the eyelids and runs down the cheeks and is the visible result of crying or weeping (see Eye). The O.E tear, taer, is represented in other Teutonic languages by Dan. taartt; Swed. tår; Goth. tagr, &c. The O.H.G. was zahar; the mod. Ger. Zähre was formed from the M.H.G. plural Zahere. The commoner word in Ger. Thräne, cf. Du. traan, is closely allied. The original root is seen in Gr. δάκρυ, Lat. lacrima, lacruma, for dacruma, whence Fr. larme, and It., Sp., and Port. lagrima.
