400 A JOURNEY TO THE 



when flying across the wind, or against it, they make but a 

 slow progress, and are then a noble shot. In their moulting 

 state they are not easily taken, as their large feet, with the 

 assistance of their wings, enables them to run on the surface 

 of the water as fast as an Indian canoe can be paddled, and 

 therefore they are always obliged to be shot ; for by diving 

 and other manceuvres they render it impossible to take them 

 by hand. It has been said that the swans whistle or sing 

 before their death, and I have read some elegant descriptions 

 of it in some of the poets ; but I have never heard any thing 

 of the kind, though I have been at the deaths of several. It 

 is true, in serene evenings, after Sun-set, I have heard them 

 make a noise not very unlike that of a French-horn, but 

 entirely divested of every note that constituted melody, and 

 have often been sorry to find it did not forebode their death. 

 Mr. Lawson, who, as Mr. Pennant justly remarks, was no 

 inaccurate observer, properly enough calls the largest species 

 Trumpeters, and the lesser, Hoopers. Some years ago, when 

 I built Cumberland House, the Indians killed those [437] 

 birds in such numbers, that the down and quills might have 

 been procured in considerable quantities at a trifling expence ; 

 but since the depopulation of the natives by the small-pox, 

 which has also driven the few survivors to frequent other parts 

 of the country, no advantage can be made of those articles, 

 though of considerable value in England.* 

 Geese. Geese. There are no less than ten difi^erent species of 



Geese that frequent the various parts of Hudson's Bay during 

 Summer, and are as follow : First, The Common Grey Goose. 



* Mr. Pennant, in treating of the Whistling Swan, takes notice of the forma- 

 tion of the Windpipe ; but on examination, the windpipes of both the species 

 which frequent Hudson's Bay are found to be exactly alike, though their note 

 is quite different. The breast-bone of this bird is different from any other 

 I have seen ; for instead of being sharp and solid, hke that of a goose, it is 

 broad and hollow. Into this cavity the windpipe passes from the valve, and 

 reaching quite down to the abdomen, returns into the chest, and joins the lungs. 

 Neither of the species of Swan that frequent Hudson's Bay are mute : but the 

 note of the larger is much louder and harsher than that of the smaller. a 



