the country is never abundant, and in others only for a short
portion of the cold season.
Outside our Empire its distribution in Asia is rather remarkable.
It occurs in Independent Burmah and Northern Siam *
but we have never met with any trace of it in Southern Tenasscrim
or any part of the Malay Peninsula, neither do I find any
record of its occurrence in Sumatra or Borneo. But Professor
Schlegel says that he has specimens from Java, Celebes, and
the Philippines. This must, however, be accepted with hesitation
; some mistake may have occurred in regard to the origin or
identification of these specimens, since the Marquis of Tweeddale
excludes this species from both his Celebes and Philippine
lists. In Formosa and Southern China it docs occur, and some
may possibly breed there, but elsewhere in China it seems rare
or non-existent, and I do not find it recorded from Japan.
In Yarkand it is common in summer, and breeds there as
it does also in South-East Mongolia, and the lakes and marshes
of the Hoang-ho; but it does not extend to the Koko-Nor, and
in the Ussuri country is, Prjevalsky says, not one-tenth as
numerous as the Common Teal. Again it is common in summer,
breeding in numberless localities throughout Southern Siberia,
and in Western Turkestan."f* In winter it is not uncommon in
Afghanistan and Bcluchistan, and has been procured, during
this season, on both the Persian and Arabian coasts of the
Gulfs of Oman and Persia. Again it occurs on the Caspian ; and
probably—though this is not on record, and I have no specimens
thence—in suitable localities throughout the interior of Persia.
It has been found in Mesopotamia, in the Caucasus, Armenia,
Asia Minor (both near the Black Sea and Mediterranean
Coasts) in Palestine and Arabia Petrasa, and probably extends
far south along the Arabian coasts of the Red Sea. It is
recorded from all parts of North-East Africa, as far south as
the ioth Degree North Latitude, Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, and so
westwards to Algiers. It may extend to Morocco and Western
Districts. They arrive about the early part of December, and leave by March or
April, a few stragglers remaining up till May or June. They aie common in most
huge tanks, and keep in llocks.
" Weedy tanks are preferred by these Teal. They live chiefly on the tender
weeds and grasses. I have never seen them on paddy fields.
"They are not very hard to shoot, and are easily approached behind a small
screen of green boughs. Sometimes a paper kite, made in the shape of a Hawk, and
flown over the tanks, keeps the Teal together, and they will not leave the tank
though fired at often."
From Pegu Mr. Eugene Oates writes :—
" This Teal is, I think, everywhere rare, much more so than the Common Teal
of Europe."
* Note that Schlegel, V. Ilcuglin and others calmly quote Tickell (or as they
spell it Tickel) as an authority for the breeding of this species in Siam. Of course
Tickell really wrote about the neighbourhood of Moulmein, but in Einope this place
is apparently supposed to be in Siam !
t Stohczka obtained a specimen, a male, on the 8th of May at Lake Siiikol, near
the Pamir (elevation about 13,000) in full breeding plumage.
Africa, but I find no reliable record of this ; and it is altogether
a less tvesterti form than crecca, and one hears of it neither
from the Azores or Madeira, nor from Greenland or the
Atlantic coasts of North America. It is also a less northern
species, for, though found in summer or winter 111 most parts
of Europe, it does not, except perhaps in Finland, (and in
Iceland if it really occurs there) extend cither in Europe or Asia
much north of the 60th Degree North Latitude.
DESPITE a contrary opinion* recorded by some authors
I do not hesitate to say that in the North-West Provinces
and Oudh, the Garganey is, as a rule, the earliest of the
winter migrants to arrive. Large flights arc commonly
seen towards the end of August, and I have a special note of
having found a flock which I estimated to contain twenty
thousand individuals at Rahun, in the Etawah district, on the
28th of August 1S65. Never before or since have I seen so
huge a body of fowl of one kind, and I have noted that I bagged
47 of them, besides losing, at the time, many wounded birds
(I had no dogs with me) in the thick rushes. I had sent my
gun punt (built exactly on the lines of one of our Norfolk
boatsf) a few days previously out there to see that it was all
right for the coming season, and I had taken with me a small
but heavy Monghyr-made swivel gun, carrying only 8 ozs. of
shot, to try. To my surprise, I found the thickest body of fowl
on the open part of the jhfl I had ever seen. I loaded the
swivel with No. 4 shot, and worked up quite close to some of
them, and within some fifty yards of the main body, when
seeing they were all about to start, I fired and knocked over at
least 60. I actually secured 47, the largest number I ever got
with this small guu at one shot ; and a basketful, I forgot to note
how many, was brought in the next day by my shikarrcc who went
out with a dog. Not an unwounded bird remained, all had gone
straight away at that first shot.
Brooks also writes that he has often seen them in the N.-W.
Provinces in August. Anderson says : " This is the first
* Thus Captain Baldwin says : —
"This somewhat handsome little Duck is larger than the Common Teal. It does
not arrive so early as the above mentioned bird ; hut I have each year noticed
that it is about the last to leave the plains of India. I have even seen small flights
of this species in the month of May, which is unusually late for migrating wild fowl.
This was in the hot season of 1871, in the Lullutpore District. I find a record
in my game book that I shot, on May 8th of that year, five Blue winged Teal in a small
tank about thirty miles from Lullutpore. Certainly the hot season of 1871 was a
mild one ; and in the same month of May of that year I killed several snipe—quite
as unusual a circumstance, if not more so, than shooting the Garganeys."
+ The objection to these boats is their weight, but I had a light platform cart
made with two large gundhnber wheel1;. Four English iron stanchions at each side
of the cart with thick girili loops between, on which the boat hung perfectly. A pair
of bullocks would run tins about any where—an essential thing to men in India,
who inarch almost daily during the cold season.
D I