414 DUCK SHOOTING. 



imitate. Koo, koo, kookoo, koo, is the way it goes, the 

 flock calhng to their leader, and the leader answering 

 them again. 



In ancient song and in story the swan holds a firm 

 place, nor is his eminence confined to any land. To 

 Lohengrin in his search for the Holy Grail, and to the 

 Blackfoot Indian seeking out the home of the Sun, 

 swans come as supernatural helpers. 



Its size, the purity of its plumage, and its soft, sweet 

 notes make the swan always a striking object, and it is 

 not strange that this bird should have impressed itself 

 on the imagination of all peoples, and that this im- 

 pression should find voice in the folk stories of races 

 which have attained the highest civilization and culture, 

 as well as of tribes that are still savages. As the mind 

 of man is everywhere the same, so we see that swans 

 are used by the ancient gods as messengers and beasts 

 of burden, and in the same way and with a like object 

 they draw the boat of a Lohengrin and carry across the 

 ocean an American Scarface. 



The swans move slowly through the sky, with wing- 

 beats that seem heavy and labored, but which carry 

 them forward at a high rate of speed. If that flock were 

 near enough for you to kill one of those birds and you 

 did so, you would find that in falling his impetus would 

 carry him a long way forward before he struck the 

 earth or the water. 



Swans are killed usually only when by chance they 

 fly over the blind low enough to be reached with a shot- 

 gun. Few gunners have swan decoys, though I have 



