OBSERVED IN HERTS IN 1893. 51 



of February. There vere five of them feeding off the hips." This 

 bird appears at uncertain intervals during the winter months, and 

 although it has been recorded on several previous occasions, its 

 erratic wanderings are always well worthy of notice in our 

 * Transactions.' 



The Whooper or "Whistling Swan {Cygnus musiciis). — Last 

 Christmas twelvemonth, Mr. Seymour, in company with many 

 other persons, noticed about thirty of these magnificent birds 

 flying over Hertford. He heard the noise made by their wings 

 in cleaving the air. They stopped at Woodhall a short time, but 

 as soon as one was shot by Mr. Noble, jun., of Woodhall, Watton, 

 they were off. Like the wild geese, these birds fly in the fashion 

 of a wedge. (I may add that the singular windpipe of this bird 

 was sent to King's College, London, and that considerable credit 

 is due to Mr. Seymour in the mounting of this specimen.) 



Mr. W. Warde Fowler, in his delightful book ' A Year with the 

 Birds,' remarks: "Swans are frequently mentioned by Virgil, 

 as by other Latin and Greek poets. This splendid bii-d must have 

 been much commoner then throughout Europe than it is now, 

 and accordingly attracted much attention. It doubtless aboimded 

 in the swampy localities of the north of Italy, and at the mouths 

 of the great rivers of Thrace and Asia Minor, as well as in the 

 north of Europe, where it came to be woven into many a Teutonic 

 fable. Homer has frequent and beautiful allusions to it ; and 

 the town of Clazomenae, at the mouth of the river Hermus, has 

 a swan stamped upon its coins. This swan of the old poets is 

 without any doubt the whooper, whose voice and presence are 

 still well known in Italy and Greece." 



The Smew {Mergus alhellus). — We are indebted to Mr. George 

 Eooper, of "Watford, for the following particulars respecting one 

 of these rare ducks (in a letter dated 7th October, 1»93) : "A 

 young smew was caught the other day in a water-cress bed. 

 My groom bought it. . . . The bird seems tame enough, and 

 I think must have escaped from captivity. It feeds well on 

 refuse fish." The smew has but rarely been reported in our 

 ' Transactions,' and no doubt Mr. Hooper is correct in regarding 

 this young bird as being an escaped prisoner, the species being 

 a winter visitor to our shores. 



The Little Atjk {Mergulus alle). — One of these rare birds, 

 Mr. "W. Norman informs me, was picked up on the 22nd of 

 November on the borders of Hertfordshire, between Royston and 

 Litlington, having evidently been knocked down by coming in 

 contact with the telegraph wii'es, its breast-bone being broken. 

 The little auk is only a winter visitor to the British Isles, and 

 when observed inland it is generally supposed to have been blown 

 from the sea in stormy weather. This bird has only on two 

 previous occasions been reported in our ' Transactions,' but the 

 late Mr. Thrale, of No Man's Land, had in his collection (which 

 I have seen) one which was obtained on the mill-head at "W^hoat- 

 hampstead. This is the specimen mentioned by Yarrell in his 



