with a surging hiss, more even, sustained and rushing than that
of any of our other Ducks. Any one who has stood under
heavy round shot fire knows the way in which shots hurtle up
to you crescendo, and die away as they pass; and just in this
way (though the sounds are in a wholly different key) does the
swish of a large flock of Garganeys surge up to you in the
stillness of the night, and die away as they pass.
For the table I do not rank the Garganey very high ; even
when in the finest condition in the best kept tealery, they are
not equal to their smaller congener, and when wild, despite their
vegetarian practice, they are greatly inferior. Even inland the
flesh is not always free from a certain marshy twang, and on
the coast this is very strongly developed.
Does t h e Garganey breed with us? Years ago Colonel
Tickell, writing to Blyth from Moulmein, said that he had
then a young one of this species alive, which was brought
him just fledged from a pond or small lake about twelve
miles off. This would appear conclusive, but since then
the neighbourhood has been ransacked by several excellent
collectors, without any trace even being obtained of the
Blue-winged Teal during the summer. If this species ever
bred anywhere in the entire Amherst District, of which Moulmein
is the head-quarters, it apparently breeds there no longer.
Davison, Bingham, Darling, &c, have all especially looked into
this question. All feel sure that this species does not now, at
any rate, breed anywhere near Moulmein. Probably (for there
has been no marked change here in country or population)
Tickell's bird, young as it seemed, was a migrant.
But Colonel Irby tells us (Ibis, 1S61, 250) that when in Oudh
he "caught some young, half-fledged, in the month of September."
Now, if he correctly identified the species, these birds
must have been hatched in Oudh, for " /foZ/'-fledged"
birds could hardly migrate. None the less during the last
twenty years, during which several ardent oologists and ornithologists
have laboured in Oudh, no similar instance has come
to notice, and no indication has been discovered of this species
breeding there.
Then again from the Mekran Coast, eggs were sent me apparently
of this species, of which Captain Butler says :—" The
nest was built on the ground in a solitary babool bush, growing
on an immense bare tract of salt marsh some seven or eight miles
north of Ormarra, called Moorputty, and consisted of a collection
of fine twigs interwoven into a very solid pad, without any
lining, measuring about eight or nine inches in diameter. The
eggs, eight in number, and of a delicate cream colour, were taken
on the 19th June 187S."
But the parent birds were not obtained, and there is no certainty
that these eggs do belong to the Garganey, though they
are like European examples, and though the bird has been
killed on this coast late in May.
These eggs are moderately broad obtuse-ended ovals,
intermediate in size between those of D. javanica and N. coromandelicus.
The shell is smooth and satiny, and has a perceptible
gloss ; the colour is an uniform ivory. They vary from
1-8 to 1 9 in length, and from i'3S to I'43 in breadth.
But besides all this, though never yet recorded from Kashmir,
elsewhere in the Himalayas, the Garganey is continually turning
up in out-of-the-way places from elevations of four
thousand feet and upwards during the summer. I have
repeatedly thus met with them, to the best of my belief, during
all the summer months, though, as I never noted the dates, I
cannot be quite certain of this now. Other men have also told
me of thus seeing them,* and it seems very possible that some
few pairs may linger to breed in secluded situations in the Himalayas.
Elsewhere they do not appear to breed much south of
Sicily and Central Greece, say, approximately the 38th degree
North Latitude ; but that is in low country, and they may well
breed 6 or 8 degrees south of this in our elevated regions. But
I confess that I should not expect them to prove to breed
normally elsewhere in India ; and, if a single nest should ever be
found anywhere in the plains, I should, in default of evidence
to the contrary, consider it as quite an abnormal and exceptional
occurrence.
Of their nidification in Europe little need be said, as it
precisely resembles that of the Common Teal. Mr. Hoy wrote
" from his experience on the continent" (people were vague in
those days) that " the Garganey commences laying its eggs
about the middle of April. The nest, which is composed of
rushes and dried grass, mixed with the down of the bird, is
placed upon the ground in low boggy situations, among the
coarse herbage and rushes, in marshes, and on the borders of
lakes and rivers."
Mr. Benzon, of Copenhagen, tells us that " this Teal breeds
here and there in Denmark, in morasses, and inland sheets of
water, and is particularly abundant in Jutland, whence I have
both the young in down and eggs on which the females have been
captured. The number of eggs varies from six to thirteen.
The earliest nest contained eleven eggs, and was taken on the
* Captain Baldwin also says :—" I met with this bird in the Himalayas several
times, first at Nyrjee Tal, then at Bheem Tal, another lake near the former, where I
shot three birds ; again on the Pindur river ; and, lastly, I shot three more in small
patches of water high up in the middle ranges, too close to a tea garden at Gwaldung.
and a third at Goomur Tal, on the opposite side of the Pindur river. I do not
think these stray birds remained to breed in the out-of-the-way spots I have mentioned,
though it is possible, hut I am inclined to think that they were merely resting
themselves."