THE SWAN. 349 



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 reminded 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 pro- 

 digious 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 



The Swan. 



leg. How far this may be strictly true we cannot say ; but 

 having once seen the pinion of an old Swan laid entirely bare 

 to the very bone, and feathers and skin stripped off, by an 

 angry stroke on the gunwale of a boat, which it fiercely en- 

 deavoured to board, we think it not impossible. At all events, 

 a blow of its w r ing can be inflicted to good and fatal effect, in 

 case of necessity, as a crafty fox, wishing for a feast of Swans' 

 eggs, found to his cost. The female was sitting on her nest 

 at one side of a river, when she observed a fox swimming from 

 the opposite shore. Rightly judging that she could encounter 

 the enemy with much better chance of success on water than on 

 land, instead of retreating, she boldly advanced to meet him r and, 



