THE GARGANEY OR BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 217 
Africa, but I find no reliable record of this ; and it is altogether 
a less western 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 in most parts 
of Europe, it does not, except perhaps in Finland, (and in 
Iceland if it really occurs there) extend either 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 QOudh, the Garganey is, as a rule, the earliest of the 
winter migrants to arrive. Large flights are 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 1865. 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 
boatst) 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 jhil 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 gun at one shot ; and a basketful, I forgot to note 
how many, was brought in the next day by my shikarree 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. 
Eaovineces il ues Anderson says: “his is the first 
* Thus Captain Baldwin says :— 
‘* This somewhat handsome little Duck is larger than the Common Teal. J¢ does 
not arrive so carly as the above mentioned bird; but 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 gun-limber wheels. Four English iron stanchions at each side 
of the cart with thick girth loops between. on which the boat hung perfectly. A pair 
of bullocks would run this about azy where—an essential thing to men in India, 
who march almost daily during the cold season, 
10) 
Oa en Rasen GIN FE aE Ni Se 
anata 
