288 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The ease and grace with which a swan swims on the surface of the 

 water is too well known and too far famed to need any further com- 

 ment ; there is no prettier picture, no grander picture, than a party 

 of these beautiful birds floating undisturbed on the mirror surface 

 of some northern mountain lake against the rugged background of 

 one of nature's wildest spots. But few people realize the speed and 

 power of the swan as a swimmer until they have tried to chase one in 

 a boat and seen how easily he escapes, even against wind and waves, 

 without recourse to flight. 



The notes of the whistling swan are varied, loud and striking at 

 times and again soft and musical trumpetings. To me they are sug- 

 gestive of the Canada goose's call in form, but are more like soft 

 musical laughter, suggested by the syllables " loow-how-ou^'' heavily 

 accented on the second note. Mr. Cameron says, in liis notes: 



Mr. Skelton describes the sounds uttered by his tame swan as " long whoops, 

 or clucking croaks, according to its mood." The wild swans upon taking wing, 

 or when arriving on migration, produce sounds like a slow shake of two notes 

 upon a clarinet. If the flock is large, as in the present instance, so many throats 

 yield a great volume of musical sound. When the quiescent swans become sud- 

 denly alarmed, and contemplate flight, a subdued chorus runs through the flock 

 like different modulations from an orchestra of reed instruments. Under no 

 circumstances could the swan voices be compared to brass instruments (such as 

 a trumpet or hunting horn) in my opinion, and herein concur Mr. Felton, Mr. 

 Williams, and Mr. Skelton, who have had frequent opportunities for listening 

 to them. We could distinctly hear the swan cries at the i-auch a mile from 

 the lake, and they might have been heard at a much greater distance. 



The old saying that " a swan sings before it dies " has generally 

 been regarded as a myth, but the following incident, related by so 

 reliable an observer as Dr. D. G. Elliot (1898), is certainly worthy 

 of credence : 



I had killed many swan and never heard aught from them at any time, save 

 the familiar notes that reach the ears of everyone in their vicinity. But once, 

 when shooting in Currituck Sound over water belonging to a club of which I am 

 a member, in company with a friend, Mr. F. W. Leggett, of New Yoi'k, a num- 

 ber of swan passed over us at a considerable height. We fired at them, and one 

 splendid bird was mortally hurt. On receiving his wound the wings became 

 fixed and he commenced at once his song, which was continued until the water 

 was reached, nearly half a mile away. I am perfectly familiar with every note 

 a swan is accustomed to utter, but never before nor since have I heard any like 

 those sung by this stricken bird. Most plaintive in character and musical in 

 tone, it sounded at times like the soft running of the notes in an octave, and 

 as the sound was borne to us, mellowed by the distance, we stood astonished. 

 and could only exclaim, " We have heard the song of the dying swan." 



Fall. — Referring to the beginning of the fall migration, Mr. 

 Lucien M. Turner (1886) says: 



The young are able to leave the nest by the first week in July, and fly 

 by the middle of September. They migrate about the middle of October, and 

 at this time the migration is invariably to the northward from St. Michael, 



