BEWICK'S SWAN. 317 



on Lough Cullen, co. Mayo, by Capt. Kirkwood, of Bartragh. 

 Mr. Pike of Achill says that this Swan arrives every winter 

 on the lakes the first week of December in considerable 

 numbers, as many as eight hundred at one time having 

 been observed during the unexampled frost of 1881, on the 

 lake of Castle Gregory, belonging to Lord Ventry, in co. 

 Kerry. Hundreds, and even thousands, are said to have 

 been counted in other localities ; but the above instances 

 will suffice to give an idea of the abundance of this species 

 on the west coast of Ireland during severe weather in the 

 north. Sir K. Payne-Gallwey adds that there is a very 

 general feeling in Ireland, especially in the west, against 

 slaying a Swan ; and the majority of fowlers cannot be 

 induced for any pecuniary reward to fire at one, holding as 

 they do, the quaint idea that a departed spirit, perhaps one 

 of their own kin, is imprisoned in the outward form of each 

 bird. The note of this species sounds like the word '' tong " 

 quickly uttered, and is very different from the " whoop, 

 whoop-whoop, whoop," of its larger congener. 



Bewick's Swan is not known to occur in Iceland, and 

 certainly not in Greenland. It visits Norway, no less 

 than nine examples being recorded by Dr. Stejneger 

 in his important monographical paper on the Swans 

 (Pr. U.S. National Mus. 1882, p. 209) ; it has occurred 

 several times in Finland ; and its migrations extend along 

 the coasts of Europe, even to the Mediterranean, a single 

 bird having been shot out of a small flock near Lucca, in 

 Italy, during the winter of 1874. It passes through southern 

 Ptussia ; and in the north, according to Henke, it breeds near 

 Archangel ; as it certainly does on the Petchora, where Messrs. 

 Seebohm and Harvie-Brown obtained the first identified eggs 

 on record. Its occurrence on Novaya Zemlya has been 

 established, and it is said to nest there ; but be this as it 

 may, this species seems to be the most numerous of the 

 Swans on the arctic portions of the mainland of Siberia, 

 and the low islands to the north. Mr. Seebohm saw 

 thousands flying northwards in spring on his visit to the 

 Yenesei ; and he obtained eggs in 69° 30' N. lat., where, in 



