WILD FOWL. 51 



neck, which are the last parts to be forsaken by the color. 

 Swans of the sixth year have assumed all the characters of the 

 adult, and very old birds have a hard protuberance on the bend 

 of the last joint of the wing. When less than six years old, 

 these birds are very tender and delicious eating, having the 

 color and flavor of the goose ; the latter quality, however, being 

 more concentrated and luscious. Hearne considers a Swan, 

 ' when roasted, equal in flavor to young heifer beef, and the 

 cygnets are very delicate.' As these birds live to a great age, 

 they grow more tough and dry as they advance, the patriarchs 

 being as unmasticahle and unsavory as the cygnets are tender 

 and delightful. 



" There are many modes practised in the United States of 

 destroying these princely ornaments of the water. In shooting 

 them while flying with the wind, the writer just mentioned 

 declares ' they are the most diflicult bird to kill I know, it being 

 frequently necessary to take sight ten or twelve feet before the 

 bill.' This I should consider an unnecessary allowance, unless 

 driven by a hurricane, but, on ordinary occasions, the bill is 

 aimed at, and if going with a breeze at a long shot a foot before 

 the bill would be quite sufficient. The covering is so extremely 

 thick on old birds, that the largest drop shot will rarely kill, 

 unless the Swan is struck in the neck or under the wing, and I 

 have often seen large masses of feathers torn from them, with- 

 out for an instant impeding their progress. 



" When wounded in the wing alone, a large Swan will 

 readily beat off* a dog, and is more than a match for a man in 

 four foot water, a stroke of the wing having broken the arm, 

 and the powerful feet almost obliterating the face of a good 

 sized duck shooter. They are often killed by rifle bal's thrown 

 ■from the shore into the feeding column, and as a ball will 

 ricochet on the water for several hundred yards, a wing may 

 be disabled at the distance of half a mile. 



" These birds are brought within shooting range by sailing 

 down wind upon them whilst feeding, and as they rise against 

 the wind, and cannot leave the water for fifteen or twenty yards, 



