THE SWAN. 189 



wkoogk, whoogh; but harsh as this cry is, it is far 

 from disagreeable when heard at a distance, and 

 moderated in the breeze. The Icelanders, whose 

 year may be said to consist but of one long day of 

 Summer months when they enjoy the light of the 

 sun, and one long night of Winter, when lie never 

 cheers them with his rays, compare this cry of the 

 Wild Swan to the sound of a violin; and when 

 heard at the end of their long and dreary Winter, 

 announcing the approach of genial weather, it is 

 associated and coupled in their minds with all that 

 is cheerful and delightful. Any person who has 

 seen a common Swan lash the water with its wings, 

 as it flaps along the surface, or has witnessed the 

 force with which it strikes a boat, when the rowers 

 approach the female with her young cygnets, needs 

 not to be reminded of the strength of its enormous 

 pinions, and their consequent effect upon the air, 

 enabling the bird to fly, according to the report of 

 those who have watched the immense flocks passing 

 to and from the lakes and rivers of the British 

 settlements in Canada, at a rate of not less than 

 one hundred miles an hour; a prodigious velocity, 

 when we consider the size and weight of these noble 

 birds. It is a prevailing opinion, amounting almost 

 to a proverb, that a stroke of a Swan's wing will 

 break a man's leg. How far this may be strictly 

 true, w T e cannot say; but having once seen the pinion 

 of an old Swan laid entirely bare to the very bone, 

 and feathers and skin stripped off, by an angry stroke 

 on the gunwale of a boat, which it fiercely endea- 

 voured to board, w r e think it not impossible. At all 

 events, a blow of its wing can be inflicted to good 



