ST. JOHNS WILT) SWAN SHOOTING. 199 



munitions of war ; but by the time we had got all iu 

 readiness to open a campaign on the fleet of snow-white 

 birds, they all took flight. After sailing two or three 

 times round the bay, and after an amazing deal of 

 trumpeting and noise, they divided into separate parties, 

 and flew off, some to the east and some to the west, 

 towards their different feeding quarters. October 7th : 

 my old garde-chasse insisted on my starting early this 

 morning, nolens volens, to certain lochs six or seven 

 miles off, in order, as he termed it, to take our satis- 

 fixction of the swans. I must say that it was a matter 

 of very small satisfaction to me ; the tramping in a 

 sleety, rainy morning, through a most forlorn and hope- 

 less-looking country, for the chance, and that a bad one, 

 of killing a wild swan or two. 



However, after a weary walk, we arrived at these 

 desolate lochs. They consist of three pieces of water, 

 the longest about three miles in breadth and one in 

 width ; the other two, which communicate with the 

 largest, are much smaller and narrower, indeed scarcely 

 two gunshots in width. For miles around them the 

 country is flat, and intersected with swampy and sandy 

 hillocks. In one direction the sea is only half a mile 

 from the lochs, and in calm winter weather the wild 

 fowl pass the daytime on the salt water, coming inland 

 in the evenings to feed. As soon as we were in sight 

 of the lochs, we saw the swans on one of the smaller 

 pieces of water, some standing high and diy on the 

 grassy islands, trimming their feathers after their long 

 journey, and others feeding on the grassy weeds at the 

 bottom of the loch, which in some parts was shallow 

 enough to allow of their pulling up the plants, which 

 they fed on as they swam about ; while numbers of wild 



