14 Mr. E. Gibson on the Ornithology of [Ibis, 



"When word was brought me of a "Pueblo" (colony) of 

 Swans, I proceeded to the scene under comfortable circum- 

 stances ; placed deck-chairs and a table in the raft and 

 ensconced my family therein with a luncheon-basket ; har- 

 nessed a couple of horses in front and tied on a canoe 

 behind ; and so "drove off'^ in state, the only trouble being 

 in the deeper water, when the raft threatened to surge on to 

 the backs of the swimming horses. Seen at a distance of 

 half-a-mile as we approached from the Estancia direction 

 and cleared the last rush-belt, the clearly visible nests 

 appeared as dark moimds, with the birds beside or sitting 

 on them — in the latter case doubly conspicuous. These 

 very shortly retreated in the direction of the Real Viejo 

 canadon, and remained in evidence as scattered pairs 

 fully a quarter of a mile off. On the raft reaching shoal- 

 water, 1 left it and waded about. Eleven nests I actually 

 examined (ten with eggs and one with young); three 

 were too awkwardly situated to reach; and two had 

 apparently hatched out — total sixteen (to the group may 

 be added one more, about half-a-mile off, Avhich I had 

 taken the previous day). The last-named I noted in detail 

 as a curiously well-built, solid, and most tidy truncated cone, 

 constructed of small dry water-weeds and roots, representing 

 an extraordinary labour in collecting and fastidiousness in 

 arranging. Twenty inches high, three feet wide at base and 

 two feet at top; the hollow eighteen inches wide and no less 

 than ten inches deep. Lined with small dry grasses, root- 

 lets, and some down; part of this drawn over the six eggs, 

 completely covering t^jem from sight, even when I stood 

 beside the nest. The other sixteen nests were scattered 

 over an area of say four hundred by four hundred yards, 

 sometimes far apart, sometimes close together : for example, 

 those built where there was still some shallow water, were 

 generally upon what was evidently a drowned-out ants' hill ; 

 whilst the single grassy islet which had escaped submersion 

 had along one side (and quite on the edge of the water) 

 no less than three nests, some twenty yards from each 

 other. They were all more or less similar to that already 



