THE SWAN. 305 



which has been expressed by whoogh, whoogh; but, harsh as 

 this cry is, it is far from disagreeable when heard at a 

 distance, and moderated in the breeze. The Icelanders, 

 whose year may be said to consist but of one long day of 

 Summer months, when they enjoy the light of the sun, and 

 long night of Winter, when he never cheers them with his 

 rays, compare this cry of the wild Swan to the sound of a 

 violin ; and when heard at the end of their long and dreary 

 Winter, announcing the approach of genial weather, it is 

 associated and coupled in their minds with all that is cheerful 

 and delightful. Any person who has seen a common Swan 

 lash the water with its wings, as it flaps along the surface, or 

 has witnessed the force with which it strikes a boat, when 

 the rowers approach the female with her young cygnets, 

 needs not to be reminded of the strength of its enormous 

 pinions, and their consequent effect upon the air, enabling 

 the bird to fly, according to the report of those who have 

 watched the immense flocks passing to and from the lakes 

 and rivers of the British settlements in Canada, at a rate of 

 not less than one hundred miles an hour, a prodigious 

 velocity, when we consider the size and weight of these noble 

 birds. It is a prevailing opinion, amounting almost to a 

 proverb, that a stroke of a Swan's wing will break a man's 

 leg. How far this may be strictly true we cannot say; but 

 having once seen the pinion of an old Swan laid entirely bare 

 to the very bone, and feathers and skin stripped off, by an 

 angry stroke on the gunwale of a boat, which it fiercely 

 endeavoured to board, we think it not impossible. At all 

 events, a blow of its wing can be inflicted to good and fatal 

 effect, in case of necessity, as a crafty fox, wishing for a feast 

 of Swan's eggs, found to his cost. The female was sitting on 

 her nest at one side of a river, when she observed a fox 

 swimming from the opposite shore : rightly judging that she 

 could encounter the enemy with much better chance of 

 success on water than on land, instead of retreating, she 

 boldly advanced to meet him, and, dashing forwards, so bat- 

 tered him with her wings, that he was soon killed, in the 

 sight of several persons who saw the combat. 



