224 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 



pleasing adjunct to a landscape at any time, but when 

 they move in dense throngs, only those who have seen 

 them can imagine what a spirited picture they present. 



Linnaeus classed the swans among the duck family, 

 notwithstanding the marked difference between them, 

 and that, one which is apparent at a glance. The legs of 

 the swan are, in the first place, behind the centre of 

 equilibrium, and the bill is high and long, whereas the 

 legs of the ducks are, proportionately, much shorter, and 

 placed near the center of the body, and the bill is short, 

 flat, and broad. 



The position of the legs makes the swan a slow and 

 awkward traveller on land, but in its native element it 

 can swim as fast as an ordinary man can walk. Its food 

 consists of frogs, leeches, small fish, grass, grain, and 

 aquatic plants, and as they are abundant in the West, it 

 suffers very little from hunger. In plucking the aquatic 

 plants, the little tooth plaits of the bill enable the water 

 to pass out, so that it does not drink any more than is 

 necessary. It crops the grass direct from the tip of the 

 bill, as ducks and hens do, not from the sides, like geese. 

 Swans being monogamous, the male lives with a single 

 female, and to win her, be, like nearly all feral creatures, 

 is often forced to fight the most desperate battles against 

 all rivals. These contests are waged with such fury that 

 the combatants are sometimes placed liors de combat for 

 the season, and, perhaps, fatally injured, for they use 

 both beaks and wings, and peck and slash at each other 

 in the most frantic manner. When the victor has driven 

 his rival from the field, he advances boldly to the female 

 and leads her away without any ceremony, but when he 

 recovers from the exhaustion of the struggle he becomes 

 very affectionate, and quietly watches her while she 

 builds a rude nest on the ground. He is unusually ten- 

 der while she is laying her eggs, and when she com- 

 mences hatching he guards her closely, and Avith such 



