THE WILD SWANS 147 



is far more difficult than that of the far-famed wild 

 goose. The latter come readily to decoys, but swans 

 do not do so often enough to make it worth while to 

 go out for them. 



Swans are often taken by stalking them when they 

 are seen sitting on the shore. Upon a recent visit to 

 Currituck I learned that the swans still winter there 

 in large numbers, and found in the game-register of 

 the Princess Anne Club records of bags containing 

 7, 8, and even 12 swans killed by club-men in the past 

 few years. 



Some swans were seen in a pond near one of our 

 camps near the Cheyenne River, and a friend of mine 

 spent several days trying to stalk them, without suc- 

 cess, however. Meantime I had fair sport with the 

 geese, canvas-backs, red-heads, scaups, mallards, 

 spoonbills, teal, gadwalls, and shot many other ducks. 



I have the same objection to swans that I have to 

 wild turkeys. It is entirely too long between shots, 

 and in fact there is usually no shooting at all. 



Elliot, in his popular Ornithology, describes the pe- 

 culiar musical notes of a wounded swan which he shot 

 at Currituck Sound. He had never heard them before, 

 and as the wounded bird floated down to the water, 

 singing as it went, he was filled with astonishment and 

 could only exclaim : " I have heard the song of the 

 dying swan." 



I had always supposed, as Elliot did, that the death 

 song existed alone in poetical fiction. 



