20 LEEK 



powers. They had been asleep when I first viewed 

 them, though the sun had risen far above the wood. 

 The ice was hard up against their sides, but I suppose 

 they were as snug as any unfeathered biped might be 

 in a four-poster. Swansdown, no doubt, is a most 

 efficient non-conductor, but what about the naked legs 

 and feet under the frozen water ! 



Since writing the above Lord Ailsa has told me of a 

 singular happening on a sheet of water in his grounds 

 at Culzean. A whooper arrived there some weeks 

 ago at the end of February and, contrary to what I 

 should have pronounced the invariable habit of its 

 kind, has remained there, instead of passing northward 

 after a brief rest. It was hoped that it might mate with 

 a tame mute swan which it found on the lake, but no 

 alliance has taken place, though the stranger is still 

 there at the time of writing (August). I regret to add 

 that it has been caught and pinioned. The late Lord 

 Lilford kept both whoopers and Bewick's swans in his 

 large collection, but although they fed, and often fought, 

 with the mute swans at Lilford, there is no record of 

 any intermarriage. 



IV 



When we were casting about during the war for home 



sources of food supply and discussing keenly 



the relative merits of what was technically, 



but not very appetisingly, classed as ' edible offal,' some 



speculation had a place in the horticultural journals 



about the kind of vegetables cultivated for food in 



early times and the approximate date of their intro- 



