392 



THE SWAN. 



The Swan. 



tame species ; the two others wild, called Hooper., 

 Whooper, or Whistling Swans, from their loud, hoarse, 

 and shrill cry, which has been expressed by whoogh, 



whoogh; but, harsh 

 as this cry is, it is- 

 far from disagree- 

 able when heard 

 at a distance, and 

 moderated in the 

 breeze. The Ice- 

 landers, whose year 

 may be said to con- 

 sist but of one long 

 day of Summer 

 months, when they 

 enjoy the light of 

 the sun, and long 

 night of Winter, when he never cheers them with his 

 rays, compare this cry of the wild Swan to the sound of 

 a violin ; and when heard at the end of their long and 

 dreary Winter, announcing the approach of genial wea- 

 ther, it is associated and coupled in their minds with all 

 that is cheerful and delightful. Any person who has 

 seen a common Swan lash the water with its wings, as it 

 flaps along the surface, or has witnessed the force with 

 which it strikes a boat, when the rowers approach the 

 female with her young cygnets, needs not to be re- 

 minded of the strength of its enormous pinions, and 

 their consequent effect upon the air, enabling the bird 

 to fly, according to the report of those who have watched 

 the immense flocks passing to and from the lakes and 

 rivers of the British settlements in Canada, at a rate of 

 not less than one hundred miles an hour, a prodigious 

 velocity, when we consider the size and weight of these 

 noble birds. It is a prevailing opinion, amounting almost 

 to a proverb, that a stroke of a Swan's wing will break 

 a man's leg. How far this may be strictly true we cannot 

 say ; but having once seen the pinion of an old Swan 



