WILD SWANS WIDGEON SNIPES. 171 



feathers are picked out, there remains on the skin a great 

 thickness of very beautiful snow-white down, which, when 

 properly dressed by a London furrier, makes boas and other 

 articles of ladies' dress of unrivalled beauty. 



Our omniverous ancestors appear to have been great eaters 

 of swans. Amongst other dishes at a feast in the reign of 

 Edward IV., mention is made of "four hundred swans." 

 Those said ancestors must have had marvellous capacious 

 stomachs ; for at the same feast there was the like number 

 of herons, besides endless other little delicacies, such as " two 

 thousand pigs;" the last entrees mentioned being "twelve 

 porpoises and seals," these probably being reserved to the 

 last as a tonnebouclie. Truly, the tables must have groaned, 

 literally, \\ot figuratively, under the burden of the good things 

 laid upon them. 



The wild swans, on their first arrival, as I before remarked, 

 are not nearly so wild as subsequent ill-treatment renders 

 them, and I never found much difficulty in procuring a brace, 

 or more, early in the season. Awaiting their arrival at a 

 feeding-place is generally the surest way of getting a shot, 

 or by waylaying them in their passage from one loch to 

 another. On a windy day I have got at them, where the 

 situation has been favourable, by dint of creeping up through 

 bog and ditch. In rough weather they are not so ready to 

 take wing, and with good management may be driven from 

 one end of a loch to the other without quitting the water. 



October is the month when the greatest number of wid- 

 geon arrive in the bay ; and the mallards, also, keep up a 

 constant quacking and calling on the sands. Every evening 

 at sunset, or soon afterwards, the latter birds fly to the 

 stubble fields, preferring those where there is the least quan- 

 tity of grass to cover the scattered grains. The water-ousels 

 now come down to the burns near the sea ; and these merry 

 little birds resort to the very same stones year after 

 year. They appear to be regular attendants on the small 

 streams and burns where the trout spawn. 



Immediately on the retiring of a flood in the river, great 

 numbers of snipes are seen on the mud and refuse left by 

 the water, feeding busily. Where they come from is difficult 

 to say, as at this season, except on these occasions, we have 

 no great abundance of these birds. Redshanks, in considerable 

 flocks, follow their example. On the 16th I see redwings in 

 the hedges ; fieldfares do not appear until ten days afterwards. 



