308 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



conveys a hint with the force of a slap on the 

 eye. The neck, a yard long, is projected straight 

 in front, not gracefully curved backwards like the 

 heron's. The feet prolong the, line behind. On 

 the line, like a figure astride a stick, is the round 

 body, to which the wings seen on their upward 

 movement give elevation. It is, in short, the legend 

 embodied, and a person unfamiliar with the 

 creature might puzzle in vain to explain it unless he 

 had the fortune to see it rise. Then, indeed, there 

 is little of mystery about the swan, for though, 

 despite its size, it is a powerful flight bird, its 

 rise is a performance of prodigious labour. It 

 will splash along the surface of a loch for fifty 

 or more yards before it can launch itself into the 

 air, and It leaves behind it a wake like that of a 

 motor-boat. 



The wild swan is a regular winter visitor to 

 many of the northern lochs, preferring the shallow 

 ones, and probably no east coast estuary is for a 

 winter season without it. Bewick's swan is not 

 absolutely rare in the same region. But both are 

 seen at their best and in the greatest abundance 

 in the western isles and on the western lochs, and 

 herein lies one of the little puzzles of migratory 

 distribution. That the common wild swan, the 

 whooper, should abound as a winter visitor on 

 the west coast and in the islands is just what one 

 would expect. The breeding -grounds of those that 

 come to Scotland are almost certainly situated in 

 Iceland and Finland, though some may come from 

 remote Spitzbergen. If we take it that they come 

 from Iceland, the west coast is the first suitable 



