WATERFOWL 



(I spare the reader the obvious classical tag), 

 and this remarkable bird, first observed by 

 Europeans in the early days of 1697, was 

 quickly brought to Europe and figures in the 

 earliest list of animals shown hi the London 

 Zoological Gardens. All these birds have a 

 curious trick of hissing when angry, and 

 this habit, perhaps because it is usually ac- 

 companied by a deliberate stretching of the 

 neck to its full length, is seriously regarded 

 by some as conscious mimicry of snakes, a 

 proposition that must be left to individual 

 taste, but that strikes me as somewhat far- 

 fetched. At any rate, it gives to these birds 

 a formidable air, and, though the current 

 belief in its power of breaking a man's arm 

 with a blow from its wing is probably un- 

 warranted, an angry swan, disturbed on its 

 nest, is an awesome apparition of which I 

 have twice taken hurried leave. On the first 

 occasion, I had nothing but a valuable 

 camera with me, and it was, hi fact, after a 

 futile attempt to photograph the bird on the 

 nest that I was moved to seek the boat and 

 push off from the little island in the Upper 

 Thames on which it had its home. The other 

 129 K 



