438 
A JOURNEY TO THE 
Notwithfianding the fize of this bird, they are 
fo {wift on the wing as to make them the moft 
difficult to fhoot of any bird I know, it being fre- 
quently neceffary to take fight ten or twelve feet 
before their bills. This, however, is only when — 
flying before the wind in a brifk gale, at which 
time they cannot fly at a lefs rate than an hundred 
miles an hour; but when flying acrofs the wind, 
or againit it, they make but a flow progtefs, and 
are then a noble fhot. In their moulting ftate 
they are not eafily taken, as their large feet, with 
the aflilance of their wings, enables them to run 
on the furface of the water as fait as an Indian 
canoe can be paddied, and therefore they are al- 
ways obliged to be fhot; for by diving and other 
Manoeuvres they render it impoffible to take — 
them by hand. It has been faid that the fwans 
whiftle or fing before their death, and I have 
read fome elegant defcriptions of it in fome of the 
poets; but I have never heard any thing of the 
kind, though I have been at the deaths of feveral. , 
It is true, in ferene evenings, after Sun-fet, I 
have heard them make a noife not very unlike 
that of a French-horn, but entirely divefted of 
every note that conftituted melody, and have 
often been forry to find it did not forebode their 
‘death. Mr. Lawfon, who, as Mr. Pennant juitly 
remarks, was no inaccurate obferver, properly 
enough calls the largeft {pecies Trumpeters, and 
the leiler, Hoopers. Some years ago, when I 
built Cumberland Houfe, the Indians killed thofe 
3 birds 
