In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 93 



well when I was a boy, bearing tbat a man out small bird shooting 

 close to the river Loddon, near Reading, crept up to a party of wild 

 Swans standing on the ice of the river, which was entirely frozen 

 overj and he got so close that with an ordinary charge of small 

 shot he bagged no less than three fine Whoopers, managing to get 

 their heads well in a row ; and a bird collector happening to pass 

 by at the time gave him a guinea for a pair of them, with which 

 the man was well satisfied, and I afterwards saw them well set up 

 in the gentleman's collection. In the winter of 1854-5, the weather 

 being very cold, Mr. William Attwater, a farmer in the parish, was 

 out shooting in our Britford meadows with James Butler, the keeper. 

 They had already made a good bag of Ducks, Teal, Snipe, and 

 Wigeon, when they paused awhile under a pollard willow to watch 

 the flight of Duck and Wigeon which were continually settling oa 

 the Broad by Longford Castle. All of a sudden four Whoopers 

 came in sight, and after circling round for a while, pitched on the 

 river not far from them. They immediately took action ; and 

 carefully deploying, the one got above and the other below the 

 Swans, the keeper killing one on the water and Mr. Attwater 

 knocking over another as it flew past him, the other two escaping 

 with a good peppering. I have not seen any since which could be 

 verified, though some of the birds that I have occasionally seea 

 passing over may in some cases have been the wild bird. 



Cygnus Bewichi. " Bewick's Swan." This bird is considerably 

 smaller in size than either the Mute or the Whooper, and can further 

 be at once distinguished by the markings on the beak, the yellow 

 on the beak of the present species falling short of the nostril al- 

 together, while in that of the Whooper it runs beneath and beyond 

 the nostril on the upper mandible. It does not occur so frequently 

 as the last-named species, but has doubtless often been taken for a 

 small specimen of its congener. I know of no instance of its 

 occurring nearer than Christchurch ; but one or two specimens have 

 been procured there, as Mr. Hart informs me; one, e.g., in 1845 j 

 another in 1849 j while a third specimen was killed on January 

 13th, 1879, by Mr. J. Kemp Welch, at Sopley Park, on the Avon. 

 This bird is nearly a foot shorter than either of the two former species. 



