1856] A Vision of Wild Swans. 81 



genial old fellows that it is impossible not to fall in love with them at 

 once. Yarrell was especially kind to me, and I used to go very often 

 and pay him a morning visit. The first volume of his third edition is 

 already printed, and he showed me the proofs and figures of the new 

 birds. . . . Do you know Bell has persuaded me into the Linnaean 

 Society ? So you see I have got promotion from the Ray. I hope you 

 will soon do the same thing. To be sure the expense is rather a con- 

 sideration, but you get your three letters much cheaper than the B. A. 

 after all. 



The other day here I saw six great Wild Swans fly past quite 

 close, not sixty yards off. It was the first time I ever saw any, and I 

 cannot tell you what a beautiful sight it was, to watch them coming on, 

 on, on, never turning right or left, nor seeming to take notice of man or 

 beast, as if impelled by some mysterious destiny. I must say that 

 as they swept past me, gloriously white under a brilliant sun, the 

 old fable of their being inhabited by the souls of the blest came vividly 

 across me. I never saw anything in birds so majestic. Two were 

 slightly touched with brown, the rest adults. 



No doubt, a rifle-ball might have been used with effect, but I felt 

 as if an attempt on their lives would quite have marred the interest of 

 the rencontre. 



By-the-by, do you know that H. Evans has been enacting a 

 second Gordon Gumming in Connemara ? I believe that he is now 

 generally known as the seal-slayer, and the success he met with was 

 something unknown before to the oldest inhabitant. At last he got 

 quite tired of killing the small seals of 5 or 6 feet, and would only care 

 for the great monsters of 8 or 10 feet,* and 3 or 4 cwt., with jaws like a 

 tiger's. You may imagine the pleasurable adventure he once had by 

 hauling a wounded monster of this kind into his boat, which was no 

 sooner done than the passenger revived, and began to leap and roar 

 and snap at everything before him, so that the crew had the greatest 

 difficulty in saving their lives and limbs. I have read before of such an 

 occurrence, but in this instance I should think the superior size of the 

 seal must have considerably heightened the interest of the parties con- 

 cerned. 



I am very glad to hear you are elected into the Ray. One even- 

 ing while I was in London I met Babington at the Linnaean, and he 

 told me that the Society was flourishing extremely, and quite a superior 

 style of men being elected as Associates ; so that I hope you are duly 

 aware of the far higher honour of being elected a member than it used 

 to be in my time. ... I am glad to hear you have a fellow-ornithologist 

 at Cambridge. I forget whether you ever went to see Salvin at Trinity 



* One of Mr. Evans' letters (dated November I7th, 1855) supplies the needed 

 clue to the above large estimate. After Mr. Evans had left Connemara, a seal of 

 his shooting was washed ashore, of which he writes : " The length of the brute, 

 I am assured by my landlord^ who saw a man who took the measure, was 9 feet 

 8 inches." It will be safe to deduct 12 inches from this. 



G 



