PLATE I 

 MUTE SWAN. Cygnus olor 



May 2nd, 1895. The nest from which this Plate was taken was built in a 

 patch of iris in a small loch near Doune, Perthshire. The birds nest in this 

 place year after year, generally rearing their young successfully. 



The nest was a huge pile of weeds, sticks, iris leaves, and dead reeds, 

 and was fully five feet across and very nearly two feet high, and contained 

 three eggs. The male hurried up from the other end of the loch when he 

 saw me approaching the nest in my boat, but did not trouble to stay when 

 he saw I was not going to disturb his mate, retiring to a distant part of the 

 loch, where I saw him, tail up, feeding in the shallows. 



When the young cygnets are newly hatched the old birds guard them 

 very jealously, and will attack any one who goes too near them, driving away 

 any birds that may come near. On a small pond close to a house near Forres, 

 a pair of Swans had succeeded in hatching out three cygnets, a Mallard had 

 also got her brood there. The old Swan was dreadfully angry whenever the 

 Mallards intruded on his part of the pond, often chasing them, and in about 

 a week he succeeded in killing the whole of the ducklings, seizing them 

 in his bill and shaking them, or holding them under the water till they were 

 choked. 



