254 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



solitary lake ! If you hide yourself behind the thick reeds so that 

 they have no suspicion of your presence^ you may see these noble 

 birds bending their necks into the most graceful curves, plunging 

 their heads into the water, catching it up in their bills, and scatter- 

 ing it behind them, the drops falling round their bodies in glittering 

 rain ; or after beating the water with powerful wing and stirring it 

 into a foam, spring forward and glide majestically over the surface, 

 cleaving it before them with their graceful bodies as the ploughman 

 opens a furrow in the ground with his ploughshare. 



Sometimes, however, these elegant birds engage in terrible com- 

 bats with each other, which not unfrequently lead to the death of 

 one of the contestants. The Domestic Swan, a more civilised and 

 educated bird, does not push matters quite so far ; but Wild Swans, 

 which live in the regions of the north in the lakes of Iceland 

 and Lapland hold most sanguinary tournaments for the favours of 

 their fair ones. A combat between two Wild Swans is a duel to the 

 death, in which both adversaries display not only unequalled strength 

 and fury, but also considerable skill and perseverance. The strife 

 will sometimes last several days, and does not terminate until one of 

 the foes has succeeded in twisting his neck round that of his enemy, 

 and has been able to hold him down under water long enough to 

 drown him. 



But let us turn from this warlike spectacle, and admire the Swan 

 at the moment when, impelled by the stimulus of love, it displays all 

 the graces with which Nature has endowed it. Their long and supple 

 necks entwine with one another like garlands of snow, their plumage 

 expanded with gentle undulations, displaying all the splendour of 

 their beauty. 



The Swan is certainly conscious of its good looks and grace, for 

 it is constantly busy in cleansing or dressing its feathers, as if its sole 

 idea was to make itself as attractive as possible. 



These birds do not afford good sport with the gun, being unap- 

 proachable.* In Iceland and Kamschatka, swan-hunting takes place 

 during the season of moulting, because the birds are then unable to 

 fly. Dogs trained to this sport chase and run them down ; the birds, 

 being soon worn out with fatigue, are easily overtaken. 



The Russians have another mode of killing Swans. When the 

 snows melt, they allure them by means of stuffed geese and ducks. 

 The Swans dart furiously on these decoys. The sportsmen, hidden 



* My experience scarcely agrees with this, for in half an hour on the Chesa- 

 peake Bay, in Maryland, I killed three brace of these birds. ED. 



