242 THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 



bill, through which they breathe, and which is, of course, impossible to 

 detect in a pond whose surface is broken by reeds and weeds. The 

 grebes do the same, and I have seen one performing the trick in clear, 

 open water, where I could see him distinctly submerged all but the bill. 



NATATORES. 



THE WILD SWAN. 

 Gaelic, Eala, whence the name of Lochnell Loch nan eala. 



Like most of our larger and nobler birds, the swan is becoming 

 scarce where living men remember them to have been most abundant, 

 and I was continually tantalised by hearing tales of the large flocks of 

 swans which used to frequent lona and the adjoining parts of Mull, 

 and the frequency of their being shot by the few who in those days 

 possessed guns. Still a winter scarcely fails to bring one or two flights 

 of these splendid birds, either flying through the Sound or sometimes 

 alighting on some piece of water either in lona or on the opposite 

 shore of Mull, the news of which was usually not long in reaching me. 

 One morning our shepherd announced the arrival of a small flock upon 

 Loch Staonig, the pool where the water hens breed. Guided by him, 

 we reached a rock which commanded it, and on raising my head, seven 

 swans rose on clanging wing. I fired at the nearest, apparently with- 

 out effect, as they held away towards the Mull coast. However, in 

 the evening my swan was brought to me by a man who saw it drop 

 behind his comrades and sink to the earth, where he picked him up 

 quite dead. I heard while at Lochgilphead of a black swan having 

 been seen about, and one day in niy punt I came up with him on Loch 

 Fyne. I supposed it to have escaped from some neighbouring gentle- 

 man's grounds, perhaps from the Duke of Argyll's castle at Inveraray, 

 but on inquiring afterwards I could not find any one in our part of the 

 country having lost such a bird, and I rather regretted not having 

 culminated in such a noble specimen of a rara avis, after which I 

 might have gracefully retired from the pursuit of wild-fowl shooting, 

 as nothing more would then have been left me to desire, unless it were 

 an unusually fine specimen of a phoenix. 



