214 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
occurrence. I have met with it both on Thoresby 
and Rufford Lakes, though it cannot be looked for 
regularly, as we have none of the marshes in which it 
delights, and where it can be secure from interruption, 
for it is excessively shy and wary, and detects a sports- 
man at a great distance. In winter I have often seen 
large flocks of this species passing overhead from the 
northward in the well-known form of the letter «; but 
it is only in twos and threes that they pay their brief 
visits to us, 
Of the Bean Goose (A. ferus) I have known a few 
individuals obtained, but they do not visit us in any 
numbers as in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire, 
and their well-known wariness makes it very difficult to 
approach them unobserved. 
That fine winter visitor the wild swan or Hooper 
(Cygnus ferus) appears in small parties in hard seasons, 
generally frequenting the Trent, where, I am sorry to 
say, it soon falls a victim ; for no sooner is a flock seen 
than numberless guns are put in requisition. I have 
known several instances of their occurrence on the river 
near Nottingham; on one occasion the flock consisted 
of seven, and all of them were shot. Two hoopers 
visited Thoresby Lake in December, 1863. They did 
not seem to fraternize with the next species, and were 
both shot by the keepers. 
The artificial lakes I have mentioned are all tenanitell 
by the Mute Swan (C. olor). They are most numerous 
on the sheet of water at Thoresby, where I have some- 
times counted more than thirty at a time. Their num- 
bers vary a little from time to time, small parties of two 
and three arriving from Clumber or Welbeck, and their 
visits being returned in due course. I once saw the 
———_—— 
