198 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



counties. They settled in ponds, streams, fields or villages 

 in an almost helpless condition. Guns, rifles and clubs were 

 brought into play; a large number of the birds were killed 

 and many were captured alive (twenty -five in one village), 

 but all were killed later for their feathers and flesh. Most 

 of the Swans which alighted within sight of human habita- 

 tions were slaughtered, only a few escaping.^ 



Occasionally they find safety during a storm by alighting 

 on the great lakes, under the lee of some point or island. 

 Rarely, a wearied, storm-beaten flock alights in Niagara River 

 and is swept over the falls, where it meets with the usual 

 reception. 



There was a great slaughter of Swans at Niagara Falls, 

 March 15, 1908; one hundred and twenty-eight birds were 

 taken out of a flock that had been swept over the falls. On 

 the morning of March 14 a flock of three hundred or four 

 hundred Swans alighted in the upper Niagara River. iVll day 

 Swans were seen floating down the river with the current, 

 till danger of being swept into the Canadian Rapids caused 

 them to rise and fly back to their starting point. Below 

 Horseshoe Falls the water was breasted by a struggling mass 

 of swans. The majority of them were carried by the current 

 to the ice bridge, and either cast up or ground against it by 

 masses of floating ice. Some were already dead, many were 

 injured and the rest stunned and unable to help themselves. 

 People came in crowds and killed all that could be reached 

 with clubs, and the rest were shot. At least one hundred 

 birds were slaughtered or picked up dead between the falls and 

 the ice bridge; none escaped alive. On the 18th, three more 

 Swans were taken, and on the 22d, twelve more came over 

 the falls, eleven of which were taken. Others were taken in 

 1906 and 1907.2 



There is little safety for a Swan in America unless it is 

 high in the air or has a mile of open water all around it. When 

 the shotgun will not carry far enough the long-range rifle is 

 brought into play. If the Swan alights on a game preserve 



1 Rennett, George B.: Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, 1880, pp. 125, 126. 



2 Fleming, James H.: Auk, 1908, pp. 306-308. 



