FOOD AND WEIGHT. 433 



times sees two old birds, accompanied by two to four young 

 ones, which evidently constitute a family." 



The food of the hooper, during the summer months, when 

 in its breeding-grounds, consists principally of aquatic plants 

 and insects ; but when stern winter necessitates it to desert 

 the lakes and rivers of the interior, and to betake itself to 

 salt water, its food is confined almost altogether, as said, to 

 sea-weed. 



Bewick states the weight of the hooper to be sixteen 

 pounds, and Yarrell twenty-four. But when unexhausted by 

 long migratory flights, and when unharassed by sportsmen, 

 its weight is more considerable than even the highest of 

 these estimates. Mr. Dann killed one weighing twenty- 

 seven pounds, and M. von Wright speaks of their attaining 

 to the same weight. M. Malm assured me, indeed, that he 

 himself had seen a hooper shot in Scania that weighed 

 no less than thirty-six Swedish, or upwards of thirty-four 

 English pounds (?). 



The hooper, except during migration, or in the winter 

 time, is never met with in the more southern parts of Scandi- 

 navia. Its home during the summer, so far as the peninsula 

 is concerned, is in the wilds and wastes of Lapland, more 

 especially in the more eastern parts of that desolate country. 

 Here it makes its appearance early in the spring ; at times, 

 it is asserted, in the month of March. 



Nilsson says the males arrive first; but this M. von 

 Wright thinks extraordinary, " because the swans often take 

 their departure from the coast in separate families ; and 

 what, therefore becomes/' he pertinently asks, " of the females 

 and young?" But from the waters generally being at that 

 early season fast bound in the iron chains of winter, they are 



VOL. II. F F 



