348 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



GARGANEY, or SUMMER TEAL. 

 Querquedula circia. 



This beautiful little Duck is certainly much rarer than the 

 Common Teal. It may be looked upon as an occasional 

 summer visitor. It has not been known to breed in Sussex. 



Some fifty years ago I found a nest^ with seven eggs, in the 

 driest part of a fen not far from Upware, in Cambridge- 

 shire. It was composed of dry sedge, the eggs being thickly 

 covered with fine down. In Yarrell (B. B. vol. iv. p. 394) 

 it is stated that, in the Broad district of Norfolk, the densest 

 reed-beds are preferred ; but Mr. Booth {' Rough Notes ') 

 makes this observation respecting the Garganey : — " About 

 Hickling Broad, w^here I have had ample opportunities of 

 observing them during the summer, I remarked that the 

 eggs were usually laid in the patches of rushes in the unre- 

 claimed marshes, at some little distance from the water, not 

 a single nest having, to the best of my knowledge, ever been 

 detected in a reed-bed. Now and then the birds were 

 known to have bred among the long coarse grass and tufts of 

 rushes on the dryer portions of the hills surrounding the 

 Broads, but as a rule they go further from their usual 

 haunts.^' 



In my own notes I find the following: — "Mr. EUman 

 informs me that his friend Mr. Vidler shot, on the 11th of 

 March, 1853, four male specimens of the Garganey, near 

 Pevensey; again, on the 21st of March, 1857, three speci- 

 mens of the Garganey were observed at sea about fifteen 

 miles off Brighton, and one, a'imale, was shot. " The food of 

 the Garganey is said, in Yarrell (B. B. vol. iv. pp. 394-^ 

 395), to consist of water-plants, grain, insects- and their 

 larvse, small frogs, worms, &c. I can find no proof of 



