^°1908^^] Fleming, Destruction of Whistling Swans. 307 



and not far from the village of Chippawa, Ont. All day detached 

 parties of swans were seen floating down the river with the current 

 till danger of being swept into the Canadian rapids caused the birds 

 to rise and fly back to their starting point. They were unable to 

 obtain food, and the constant battling with the swift current no 

 doubt weakened them. They were still in the upper river Sunday 

 morning the 15th. It was a day of drizzling rain. About 11.30 

 A. M. William Leblond, who lives at the 'Maid of the Mist' landing 

 below the Horseshoe Falls, was on the ice bridge that then barred 

 the river at that point. His attention being called by its cries to a 

 swan struggling at the edge of the ice, he looked up the river towards 

 the Falls. The water seemed covered with a struggling mass of 

 swans that were rapidly being swept towards him. Some were 

 caught in the Bass Rock eddy and detained near the Ontario Power 

 Company's building, but the great majority were carried by the 

 current directly to the ice bridge and either cast up, or ground 

 against it, by the masses of floating ice that were continually coming 

 over the Falls. Some of the birds were already dead, many were 

 injured, and the rest stunned and unable to help themselves ; though 

 how any could have remained alive after coming over the falls is 

 difficult to understand; yet many of the birds were able to call 

 loudly in their distress. News of the disaster quickly spread and 

 men went out on the ice bridge clubbing all the swans that could be 

 reached, while others fished the dead and dying birds out of the 

 water with poles, and the Italian laborers at the power works 

 attended to all that came ashore at their point. On Monday any 

 birds that could not be reached with clubs and poles were shot. 

 Just how many of the flock came over the falls will never be known 

 but after the disaster it was estimated that something under 200 

 birds remained on the upper river; at least 100 birds were either 

 slaughtered or picked up between the falls and the ice bridge; 

 some were certainly sucked under the ice and caught in the fissures 

 of the ice bridge, and only two were taken below that point. There 

 seems little doubt that 100 is a safe estimate of the birds taken, and 

 all are agreed that none escaped alive, though it afterwards became 

 apparent that many of the birds would have recovered from the 

 shock had they been left alone, though the town of Niagara Falls 

 would thereby have missed a gastronomic experience much to its 

 liking, for contrary to the usual belief these swans were good eating. 



