220 THE GARGANEY OR BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 
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 THE 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 excel- 
lent 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 Moul- 
mein 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 (/ézs, 1861, 250) that when in Oudh 
he “caught some young, half-fledged, in the month of Septem- 
ber.” Now, if he correctly identified the species, these birds 
must have been hatched in Oudh, for “kalf-fledged” 
birds could hardly migrate. None the less during the last 
twenty years, during which several ardent oologists and ornitho- 
logists 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 appar- 
ently 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 collec- 
tion 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 1878.” 
