186 THE SWANS 



is over and the cygnets are hatched and have been induced by the 

 parents to take to the water on the second day of their lives, both 

 parents take charge of them. During the early stages of their life 

 it is quite a common sight to see the young perched on the back of 

 the female, and Yarrell states that he saw the young make use of the 

 extended foot in order to clamber on to the old bird's back. Heinroth 

 believes that the foot is stretched out behind in order to dry the 

 membrane thoroughly before inserting it among the feathers for the 

 purpose of warming it, and observes that it is only in fine weather in 

 spring and summer, when the air is appreciably warmer than the water, 

 that this habit is noted. Unless separated, the young birds remain 

 with their parents till late in the autumn, and in some cases through 

 the winter, but in the following February or March are invariably 

 driven away by the old birds. Most of these young birds spend their 

 second year associating with one another in companies, and in the 

 early spring of their third year settle down to married life as soon as 

 they can find a suitable spot for breeding. 



Our knowledge of the life-history of the other species is naturally 

 far less complete. The habits of the whooper can, however, be studied 

 without much difficulty in its breeding haunts in Iceland and Northern 

 Europe. Like the mute-swan it is a life-paired bird, and during the 

 second week of April many hundreds pass over the Orkneys, heading 

 in a NNW. direction for their breeding-grounds in Iceland, which 

 they reach about the end of the month. The young birds appear 

 not to breed till their third year, and at one shallow lake in lower 

 Vatnsdalur from fifty to about a hundred of them spend the whole 

 summer. The third year birds betake themselves to the little lochs 

 and tarns, which are extremely numerous in some parts of Iceland, 

 each pair as a rule monopolising one piece of water unless it happens 

 to be a large one. The same breeding-places are resorted to year after 

 year ; and in some cases even the same nests, according to Slater, are 

 reoccupied, becoming very solid in time, and measuring as much as a 

 yard in height. Ordinary nests are not much more than 18 inches 



