THE SWANS 179 



must have increased enormously, for Paulus Jovius (1543) speaks 

 of the Thames as being thickly covered with them. At the present 

 time it is quite impossible to say whether the numerous individuals 

 which are to be seen on our coasts and tidal waters in winter, and 

 breed even in the Outer Hebrides and the west of Ireland, are all 

 descended from our introduced stock, or whether among them are 

 genuine immigrants from the Continent, where truly wild birds 

 still exist. All the swans respond readily to protection and rapidly 

 become tame, so that there is nothing remarkable in a wild immigrant 

 settling down in some spot where it is unmolested and breeding 

 there. Moreover, the semi-domesticated life led by most British- 

 breeding swans has not resulted in the perpetuation of any variations 

 of plumage, unless we class the occasional appearance of what are 

 known as Polish swans under this head. Genuine wild birds from 

 Roumania and South Russia are exactly similar to our own tame 

 stock, so that it is not possible to detect with certainty the presence 

 of visitors from other lands. Probably the nearest breeding-grounds 

 of the wild form are some of the mosses of Jylland in Denmark, 

 while the district of the great lakes in South Sweden is also haunted 

 by others. The enormous extent of reed-beds in the delta of the 

 Danube is inhabited by a fair number, as are also the marshes of 

 East Prussia, and the flight from Sweden or Denmark to our east 

 coast is well within the powers of a bird whose winter wanderings 

 extend to the lakes of Algeria and Lower Egypt. 



As a rule home-bred swans are unwilling to fly, and will allow a 

 fairly close approach when unpinioned without taking to the wing, so 

 that nearly all those which are to be seen in the summer in the British 

 Isles, or which allow a close approach in winter, may be safely ascribed 

 to the species Cygnus olor (Gmel.). It does, however, occasionally 

 happen that the whooper has been known to become so tame, where 

 protected, that it will come to be fed within a few yards of the spectator. 1 



1 See the account of extraordinary tameness of whoopers on the river Eden in Cumberland 

 in the Ibis, 1911, pp. 546-548. 



