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THE GARGANEY OR BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 
Querquedula circia. Native names : Chaitwa , Patari, Khyra, Hind.; 
Gangrobe , Girria , Beng. 
Habitat. — A winter visitor to every part of India. It is perhaps our 
commonest duck. 
Description. —Male—forehead and crown blackish, with a broad band of 
white from the front of the eye skirting the back of the crown ; chin, black ; 
sides of the head, throat and neck, chocolate brown. Mantle and breast barred 
with fulvous and brown. Lower breast and belly, white. Sides of the body, 
white, barred with wavy black lines. Outer web of primaries, blackish ; inner 
web, drab ; axillaries, white; speculum, pale metallic green, with a broad white 
band above and below. Back and rump, dark brown. Female—forehead 
and crown, brown ; sides of the head and neck and foreneck, pale grey, mottled 
with brown ; chin and throat, pale grey. Mantle, back, rump, scapulars, and 
upper tail coverts and tail, dark brown. Belly, pale fulvous white ; sides 
of the body, brown; axillaries, white ; speculum, brown ; often tinged with 
green, no white eye band. It affects open water with plenty of floating weeds ; 
it is j seldom shy, but is a very swift and silent flyer and turns and twists far 
less than the commm teal, but dives and swims better than that bird. 
