82 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



uncertainty as to its origin is easily accounted for. It 

 breeds in the tundras west of the White Sea, lands 

 absolutely unvisited by ordinary travellers, and in- 

 habited only by scattered Samoyeds, whose interest 

 in natural history is confined to trapping the birds 

 upon their nests and stealing their eggs, or to organis- 

 ing swan drives when the unfortunate birds have shed 

 their flight feathers and are helpless. The numbers 

 of men and of swans and wild geese in these distant 

 Arctic lands vary inversely. Swans and geese, unlike 

 nearly all other birds, shed most of their flight 

 feathers at the same time, and remain unable to fly 

 till the fresh quills have grown. At such times the 

 "native," if unfortunately he happens to be in the 

 neighbourhood, takes the opportunity to kill the birds. 



The Bewick's swans, though reared at such a vast 

 distance in the farthest North and East, come in 

 numbers to the shores of Ireland, where the numerous 

 estuaries and bays offer them a safe and congenial 

 winter home. It is among the curiosities of natural 

 history that while these two birds fly north to nest in 

 such high latitudes, the wild mute swans, the originals 

 of our domesticated birds, nest at least a thousand 

 miles farther south, and never visit our shores. They 

 do not breed west of the Rhine, or farther north than 

 Denmark and the south of Sweden. 



The flight of these, which are probably the largest 

 of all swans, is a most beautiful sight ; but owing 

 to the foolish and cruel custom of pinioning all 

 swans on the Thames, it is not so often enjoyed 

 as it mighty be. There are now so many swans on 



