CHAPTER XI 

 WILD SWANS 



THE flight of birds still gives true auguries both of 

 storm and sunshine. They alone can almost outstrip 

 the wind ; and if they cannot outfly the onward march 

 of frost, they can soon place hundreds of miles 

 between themselves and any region suddenly invaded 

 by intolerable cold. One of the surest indications 

 that the Ice King has enlarged the borders of his 

 dominions, and brought the seas and shores lying 

 southward of the Arctic night temporarily under his 

 sway, is the arrival on our coasts of the swans, the 

 birds which Norse legend and fancy identified with 

 the snow-clouds and the realms of everlasting ice. 

 The author of the Religio Medici says in his 

 notes on the birds of Norfolk : " In hard winters 

 elks, a kind of wild swan, are seen in no small 

 numbers. ... If the winter be mild, they come no 

 further southward than Scotland ; if very hard, they 

 go lower, and seek more Southern places, which is 

 the cause that sometimes we see them not before 

 Christmas or the hardest time in winter." Mr. 

 Stevenson, the author of the " Birds of Norfolk," the 

 classic of local ornithology, says that this account 

 written by the learned Norwich physician in the days 



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