282 A LITTLE SWAN SHOOT 



tie behind, and was bleeding. One pellet of 

 AAA shot from my brother's gun had struck him 

 in the breast. As he was passing over I knock- 

 ed him down also. Golly! What two fine birds! 

 I am sure they were about five feet long. We sat 

 there, my brother and I, over half an hour, turn- 

 ing them around and admiring them. When my 

 brother had gone around, he had no trouble in 

 approaching them as far as the edge of the tall 

 grass below r . There he had fired at the two of 

 them in a line, at what he thought was about fifty 

 yards range but it was actually over a hundred. 

 The birds were too heavy to carry around with 

 us, so we hung them up in the trees and decided 

 to do some work and come back to the lake that 

 evening and have a grand swan feast. On our re- 

 turn my brother set to work plucking one, while 

 I got camp ready and cut some wood. Shortly 

 afterwards, coming with a load, I found he had 

 given up his job. He said it was like pulling out 

 stakes, every feather held so hard. We had no 

 time to waste, so we ripped the swan open with a 

 knife and skinned it. Half of it was then cut and 

 placed on the spit. It was very lean. After it 

 appeared to have been well cooked we had our sup- 

 per. My goodness ! English oak-tanned sole lea- 

 ther was tender compared to this. We got a lit* 

 tie down, with time, as we were pretty hungry, 

 but voted that cooking on the spit was not the 

 proper way for swan. In the evening we cut the 



