JANUARY. 



WILD SWAN SHOOTING. 



BY GEORGE LINDESAY. 



A COUPLE of evenings ago old Bob, the keeper, came in from one 

 of his moorland excursions to inform me that there were wild 

 swans on the Black Lochs, and that, therefore, we were in for 

 severe weather. He and the swans were right, for it is now 

 blowing a whole gale from the north-east, accompanied by a 

 heavy snowstorm, and I know that the wild fowl will be coming in 

 by thousands, and that before long Bob and I will be among 

 them. 



The Black Lochs are five in number, and are distant from 

 my home a good ten miles. There is an abominably bad peat road 

 as far as a lonely uninhabited cottage, where we occasionally sleep 

 when shooting the outlying beats. As far as this we can drive 

 at any rate, we can progress on wheels for the remaining five 

 miles we have to tramp it through desolate swampy flats, inter- 

 spersed here and there with low hillocks. 



Severe weather may with safety be predicted when the swans 

 are seen on these most unattractive-looking tarns, but when they 

 do arrive they are never in a hurry to leave (there being plenty of 

 feeding), and before they do go we generally manage to get two 



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