470 Anatidce. 



friend and neighbour and a keen observer, wrote me word that 

 as he was riding in a field below his house he saw a Wild Swan 

 pass over his head, making for the westward that is, towards 

 Bowood; and that he had never seen one on the wing before, 

 and much marvelled at the speed at which it travelled. It was 

 soon, he said, out of sight. This occurrence of the Wild Swan 

 so far inland was the more remarkable, because the winter of 

 1877, so far from being severe, was one of the mildest and wettest 

 ever known in this country. Lord Nelson tells me of a Whistling 

 Swan which was killed at Trafalgar, and Mr. Herbert Smith of 

 one shot at Bowood in the year 1885 by one of Lord Lansdowno's 

 keepers. It derives its specific name, muxicus, not from its 

 fabled song just before its death, but from the peculiar grand 

 clanging trumpeting or whooping note which it repeats several 

 times at intervals ' hoop, hoop/ ' hoop, hoop ' whence its name 

 * Whooper ' and ' Whistling Swan.' Lloyd, who was well accus- 

 tomed to see it in Sweden during the spring and autumn 

 migrations on the way to and from the breeding-stations in the 

 far North, says : ' Its voice, though it consists but of two notes, is 

 beautifully melodious, more especially as frequently happens 

 when birds of different ages, whose notes differ, take part in the 

 concert. Some think that in the distance their song resembles 

 the finer notes of the bugle. KjaBrbolling likens it to the sound 

 of distant church bells; and adds that in cairn weather it may 

 be heard at more than a Danish (4J English) mile's distance.'* 

 Oordeaux says : ' The cry of the Wild Swan is extremely wild and 

 musical. I once, during the prevalence of a severe "blast," saw 

 forty- two of these noble birds pass over our marshes, flying in 

 the same familiar arrow-head formation as Wild Geese use a 

 sight not to be forgotten, not alone for their large size and snowy 

 whiteness, but for their grand trumpet notes ; now single, clear, 

 distinct, clarion-like, as a solitary bugle sounds the " advance " ; 

 then, as if in emulation of their leader's note, the entire flock 

 would burst into a chorus of cries, which resemble a pack of 

 hounds in full cry.'f Cordeaux also calls attention to the 



* Scandinavian Adventures,' vol. ii., p. 429. 

 t 'Birds of the Humber District,' p. 157. 



