102 FURTHER NOTES ON THE SWANS OF INDIA. 



of very unusual severity. The bird must be a purely acciden- 

 tal straggler, as I could not learn that any like it had ever be- 

 fore been seen in Nepal." 



In reply to queries of mine on the subject, Dr. Scully says : 

 li I have made enquiries from a number of Nepalese, and I can- 

 not find any one now remaining who ever remembers to have 

 seen a wild Swan in the valley." 



" In Asiatic Researches, XVIII., pt. II., 125, Hodgson gives 

 Cygnus as one of the Natatores which usually pass over the 

 valley, seldom alighting, and only for a few hours/' 



"At page 127 he adds : India, I fancy, is too hot for the taste 

 of the J^atatores, a great majority of which seem to affect 

 Arctic regions, or at least high latitudes. I throw out the re- 

 mark for canvass and enquiry, and for fear I should deceive 

 any one by the display of the genus Cygnus at the head of my 

 list, I must add that the wild Swan was never seen here (valley 

 of Nepal) but once in the mid winter of 1828, when the ap- 

 parition suggested a new version of the well-known hexameter 

 " Rara avis in terris, alboque simillima cygno." 



The next occurrence of Swans, of which I have a record, was 

 near Peshawur, in 1857, when a small flock were seen, and one 

 shot and placed in the Peshawur Museum, whence it was sent 

 to me by Sir F. Pollock in, I think, 1867. 



This Swan was shot by W. Mahomed Oomer Khan, who wrote 

 to me about it as follows : — 



tl In the month of January 1857, I shot this Swan in the 

 Peshawur District on the Shah Alum Eiver, about a mile and 

 a half on this side of the Cabul River. Neither before nor 

 after have I seen other Swans, but a few years after I killed it, 

 I heard from the shikaris of Hushtnugger (also in the 

 Peshawur District) that they had recently seen five of these 

 birds in the Agra village lake, in this same district, but had 

 failed to shoot any." 



The specimen had been so entirely ruined by exposure and 

 insects that I could not be certain what species it belonged 

 to, although from what remained of the bill and head I guessed 

 it to be C. olor. 



In 1871 Captain Unwin, of the 5th Goorkhas, sent me the 

 skins of a pair of Swans with the following extract from his 

 diary, under date 17th January 1871 : — 



" To-day, while Duck shooting on the Jubbee stream on the 

 border of the Hazara and Rawul Pindee Districts, during a 

 short halt for breakfast on the banks of the nullah, I was attracted 

 by seeing two large white birds flying over the stream some 

 250 yards lower down. The Jubbee has here a wide stony bed 

 with a small stream in the centre, forming occasional pools, in 



