WILD SWANS. 231 



for then lie may note with pleasure their graceful 

 movements and stately mien as, with oary feet, they 

 proudly row themselves over the mirror-like water or the 

 soughing wavelets of bluish hue. Their attitudes are 

 always majestic on the water, for their high, arched necks 

 give them an air of mingled grace and stateliness; yet their 

 beauty is wasted on the pot hunter, as he looks upon 

 them merely from a monetary point of view, and docs 

 not hesitate to kill the female while she is hatching, for 

 the sake of the dollar she may bring in the market. A 

 swan in full plumage sometimes sells as high as a dollar 

 and a half, but this price is paid only when there is a 

 good demand for the down, or the bird is plump and 

 tender. Swans are so common along the Columbia Kiver 

 that I doubt if one would there bring more that fifty 

 or seventy-five cents, and only limited numbers can real- 

 ize that sum. 



If a man wants swan shooting to his heart's content, 

 he has only to visit any of the States and Territories from 

 Alaska to California, and from Montana to Arizona, and 

 if he does not succeed m that region he cannot m any 

 part of the world. I have shot a swan from the deck of 

 a steamer on the Snake River, and many from canoes on 

 the Upper Columbia and Missouri Rivers, and found that 

 it required no great exertion to bag them, provided I 

 fired at the head and neck with a shot gun, and at the 

 body with a rifle. 



The best bag I ever made was on a sand bar, or island, 

 m the Upper Columbia. This was occupied largely by 

 swans, although geese and ducks were also quite common, 

 and so numerous in the surrounding waters that the 

 stream was literally covered with them. I went to this 

 place with a rancher, who was a keen sportsman, and a 

 man whose ideal of life was a lod e in the wilderness where 

 he could commune with nature and hunt and fish whenever 

 the spirit seized him. We took up our position on the island 



