20 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol XL 



(that is the tame swan). There were five on a small ' dhan ' or tank, 

 about half a mile or less in length by a quarter of a mile or less in 

 breadth. I went to shoot ducks, but seeing these large white birds, 

 I went after them and recognised them to be the same as those I had 

 seen on the Manchar. They let a boat get pretty close, and I shot 

 one. The other four flew round the tank a few times and then settled 

 on it again. I went up in the boat and fired again, but without 

 effect. They flew round and then settled again. The third time I 

 shot another ; the remaining three again flew round and settled, and 

 the fourth time I fired I did not kill. Exactly the same thing 

 happened the fifth time, the birds flew round and settled close to me 

 and I shot a third. The remaining two flew a little distance and 

 settled, but I thought it would be a pity to kill them. I considered 

 that there would be more than I could skin myself (for I have no one 

 to do it for me) so I began to shoot ducks and then the two remaining 

 swans flew by me, one on the right and one on the left, so that I 

 could easily have knocked them over with small shots. However, I 

 spared them and came home with three." 



Everyone will notice how remarkably tame and confiding the 

 above swans were ; were it not for the date on which they were shot, 

 the 12th of February, one would have imagined that they were birds 

 exhausted by their long flight on migration : as it is, there is no 

 explanation beyond the fact that the birds were young in age and even 

 younger in experience. In the same year as that in which Mr. Watson 

 obtained his swans, but strange to say in the month of June, three 

 more birds were seen, of which two were shot, one by Major "VVaterfield 

 which was identified as Cygnus olor^ and one by Mr. D. B. Sinclair, 

 This last, most unfortunately, went bad before it could be examined 

 by anyone competent to decide its species, and though, in all pro- 

 bability, the bird was C. olor, the point must remain in darkness. Even 

 later than this swans were seen that year, for on the 7th July Mr. 

 Sinclair wrote to Mr. Hume to tell him that there was still one 

 more swan on the Gulabad jhil, a body of water some two miles 

 north-east of Peshawar. 



This swan is said to breed gregariously, so it is to be presumed that 

 it is not so pugnacious a bird in its feral as in its domestic state. 

 Certain birds which belonged to Shakespere's birth-place used to breed 



