48 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



When making either their semi-annual migration or shorter ex- 

 peditions, an occasional scream, equal to ' how do you all come 

 on, behind V issues from the leader, which is almost immediately 

 responded to by some posterior Swan, with an ' all's- well ' vocif- 

 eration. When the leader of the party becomes fatigued with 

 his extra duty of cutting the air, he falls in the rear and his neigh- 

 bor takes his place. When mounted, as they sometimes are, 

 several thousand feet above the earlh, with their diminished and 

 delicate outline hardly perceptible against the clear blue of hea- 

 ven, this harsh sound, softened and modulated by distance, and 

 issuing from the immense void above, assumes a supernatural 

 character of tone and impression, that excites, the first time 

 heard, a strangely peculiar feeling. 



"In flying, these birds make a strange appearance ; their long 

 necks protrude, and present, at a distance, mere lines with black 

 points, and occupy more than one-half their whole length, their 

 heavy bodies and triangular wings seeming but mere append- 

 ages to the prolonged point in front. 



" When thus in motion, their wings pass through so few de- 

 grees of the circle, that, unless seen horizontally, they appear 

 almost quiescent, being widely different from the heavy, serai- 

 circular sweep of the Goose. The Swan, when raigra4;ing with 

 a moderate wind in his favor, and mounted high in the air, cer- 

 tainly travels at the rate of one hundred miles or more an hour. 

 I have often titned the flight of the Goose, and found one mile 

 a minute a common rapidity, and when the two birds, in a 

 change of feeding-ground, have been flying near each other, 

 which I have often seen, the Swan invariably passed with nearly 

 double velocity. 



" The Swans, in travelling from the northern parts of America 

 to their winter residence, generally keep far inland, mounted 

 above the highest peaks of the Alleghanies, and rarely follow 

 the water-courses like the Geese, which usually stop on the 

 route, particularly if they have taken the sea-board. The Swans 

 rarely pause in their migrating flight unless overtaken by stoira, 

 above the reach of which occuiTcnce they generally soar. They 



