THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
male, but the lesser wing -coverts are brown, tinged with greyish. Total 
length about 14 inches; bill 1 '4 inch; wing 7*1 inches; tail 2 *7 inches; 
tarsus 1 *2 inch. 
General distribution . — ^The garganey is met with throughout the greater 
part of Europe and Asia, and in winter visits the northern and tropical 
portions of Africa. It is a common breeding species in Europe from 
Denmark, South Sweden, Finland and North Russia southwards, especi- 
ally in the east, being much scarcer and less regular in the Iberian 
Peninsula than it is in the Black Sea district. In Asia its summer-range 
extends eastwards to Kamchatka, and from about 60° N. latitude south- 
wards to the Himalaya. In winter the birds breeding in the more northern 
districts move southwards, and the garganey is then far more abundant 
in the south, and visits North Africa, wandering as far south as Uganda ; 
eastwards it ranges to Palestine, Arabia, and Persia, is very common in 
India and Ceylon, and visits China, Japan, the Philippines, Borneo and 
the Moluccas. 
Distribution in the British Isles. — The garganey is chiefly a spring- 
visitor to the British Isles, but also visits our shores, though less 
frequently, in autumn; while in exceptional instances individuals have 
been known to pass the winter in this country. It breeds regularly, but 
in small numbers, in some of the south-eastern counties of England, 
from Norfolk southwards to Kent, and used to breed regularly in North- 
umberland before Prestwick Car was drained; it has occasionally done 
so during recent years in Durham, Yorkshire, Hants and Somerset. In 
Scotland, the West of England and Wales, and in Ireland, it is irregularly 
and comparatively rarely met with; in the Shetland and Orkney Islands 
and in the Outer Hebrides its occurrence is doubtful. 
Nest and eggs . — Its nesting -habits, and eggs, laid in the end of April 
and May, do not differ from those of the common teal. Incubation lasts 
from twenty-one to twenty-two days. 
Its food seems to consist of small fishes, molluscs and aquatic insects, 
with some vegetable matter, and its flesh is not considered particularly 
good for the table. 
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