1 70 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



they rose on wing together, as one grand white 

 cloud, and left for the sea, but always returned ere 

 nightfall. 



Besides the eight hundred on Castle Gregory 

 lake in the winter 1 880-81, there were several 

 smaller herds on the mountain lakes in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Even in mild seasons three to four 

 hundred swans is not an unusual sight here ; and 

 the keeper (William Thompson, now with Lord 

 Penrhyn) reported that he once counted quite two 

 thousand on this lake. 



In the winter of 1864-65 a large herd of about 

 nine hundred appeared on the Shannon, and at the 

 same time a number of smaller ones, consisting of 

 some two hundred others. A full account of them 

 was given at the time by the late F. J. Foot, in 

 the " Proceedings of the Dublin Natural History 

 Society," vol. iv. p. 109. 



Nine Hoopers frequented the mud-banks of the 

 Hen River, Skibbereen, co. Cork, during the hard 

 frost of January 1 88 1 (Captain Morgan of "Bunalun"). 

 In the county Mayo swans are found in winter on 

 the lagoons and lakes near the sea, in the wild 

 mountainous and bog districts, but are never 

 numerous, and few are shot. 



There is a very general feeling in Ireland against 

 slaying a swan. The superstition is that something 

 dreadful will sooner or later overtake the man who 

 kills one. In some counties, notably in the west, 

 \he poor fowler could not for a purse of gold be 

 induced to fire at a swan. They hold the strangely 

 quaint idea that a departed spirit, perhaps of one of 

 their own kin, is imprisoned in the outward form of 



