THE SWANS 

 (Olor columbianus) and (Olor buccinator) 



(Subfamily, CYGNINAE) 



Both the whistling swan (Olor columbianus) and the 

 trumpeter swan (Olor buccinator) were once very plen- 

 tiful on the Pacific Coast hunting grounds, as far south 

 as central California, and especially so on the Colum- 

 bia river and the lakes of Oregon and Washington. A 

 few were met with also as far south as San Diego coun- 

 ty, California. 



I shall never forget the first two swans I ever killed 

 and my experience with them. It was the first winter 

 after I came to California and I was living in Los An- 

 geles, then a little Mexican village, and three of us 

 were doing our own housekeeping. Whatever the rea- 

 son most likely from some hallucination of boyhood 

 I entertained the belief that swans must be exceedingly 

 fine eating. As I prided myself then, just after crossing 

 the plains, upon being a good cook, great preparations 

 were made for an extra fine feast on what I fancied 

 would be a delicious bird. We had a good stove and 

 the first of the two swans was carefully "stuffed" with 

 the choicest dressing, consisting of the combined sug- 

 gestions of the three of us. It was placed in the oven, 

 the fire carefully tended and the magnificent bird re- 

 peatedly "basted." When it was ready and placed on 

 the table it fell to my lot to do the carving. Having 

 drawn my knife across the hunger-producing carcass 

 without making any perceptible impression, I decided 

 that it must be the fault of a dull knife. Among our 

 table furnishings we had no sharpening steel, a scythe 

 stone doing service in its stead. I hunted this up and 

 began on the knife with the "mower's challenge" stroke 

 and soon had an edge that would have cut through any- 

 thing less than an eighty-pound rail. With no little ef- 

 fort I amputated the legs and the wings, and cutting 

 a generous piece from one side of the breast passed it 

 to one of my companions, who at once began on it with 

 his knife. A few attempts to sever it and he reached 

 for the scythe stone. Then when he began chewing on 

 the segregated piece he declared that it was not cooked 

 enough. A dispute followed as to whether it is over- 

 cooking or under-cooking that makes a bird tough. With 

 this momentous question still unsettled we decided that 

 some of the many ingredients that we had put into the 

 "stuffing" must have given the meat its sole-leather 

 consistency. We had a couple of hounds, whose teeth 

 had been well tested in many a coyote kill, and we 

 passed this first swan up to them. 

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