BIRD NOTES 67 



old man picked up the hapless eel, took it to his 

 houseboat, and cooked it for his dinner. He 

 chuckles to this day when relating how the Heron 

 obliged him by catching a fine eel for him. 



SOME SWAN NOTES 



The various species of Wild Swans usually visit us 

 in very hard winters ; occasionally so many have been 

 seen as to mark the year as a "swan year." In 

 other winters not a Swan is seen. During a very 

 sharp and protracted frost in January 1879, I 

 counted in two flocks fifty-three Whoopers (Cygnus 

 miisicus). They were wheeling in an unsettled and 

 distrustful way around Breydon, far above gunshot, 

 to the annoyance of quite a regiment of punt and 

 shore gunners who were hiding and skulking eager 

 for a shot. Not one was killed. In March odd 

 birds and small flocks are occasionally observed 

 passing northward. The note of this bird, as I have 

 heard it, seems to me to resemble a very bad 

 imitation of the Curlew's. As far as I have been 

 able to note the appearances of Swans, the Bewick's 

 Swan (C. bewicJci) occurs more frequently, although 

 not in such large flocks : certain seasons have seen on 



