538 TRUMPETER SWAN. 
whined was shot on a lake near the junction of that river with the Mis- 
sissippi. It measured nearly ten feet in alar extent, and weighed 
above thirty-eight pounds. The quills, which I used in drawing the 
feet and claws of many small birds, were so hard, and yet so elastic, 
that the best steel-pen of the present day might have blushed, if it 
could, to be compared with them. 
Whilst encamped in the Tawapatee Bottom, when on a fur-trading 
voyage, our keel-boat was hauled close under the eastern shore of the 
Mississippi, and our valuables, for I then had a partner in trade, were 
all disembarked. The party consisted of twelve or fourteen French 
Canadians, all of whom were pretty good hunters; and as game was 
in those days extremely abundant, the supply of Deer, Bear, Racoons, 
and Opossums, far exceeded our demands. Wild Turkeys, Grous, 
and Pigeons, might have been seen hanging all around; and the ice- 
bound lakes afforded an ample supply of excellent fish, which was pro- 
cured by striking a strong blow with an axe on the ice immediately 
above the confined animal, and afterwards extricating it by cutting a 
hole with the same instrument. The great stream was itself so firmly 
frozen that we were daily in the habit of crossing it from shore to shore. 
No sooner did the gloom of night become discernible through the grey 
twilight, than the loud-sounding notes of hundreds of Trumpeters would 
burst on the ear; and as I gazed over the ice-bound river, flocks after 
flocks would be seen coming from afar and in various directions, and 
alighting about the middle of the stream opposite to our encampment. 
After pluming themselves awhile they would quietly drop their bodies 
on the ice, and through the dim light I yet could observe the graceful 
curve of their necks, as they gently turned them backwards, to allow 
their heads to repose upon the softest and warmest of pillows. Just a 
dot of black as it were could be observed on the snowy mass, and that 
dot was about half an inch of the base of the upper mandible, thus ex- 
posed, as I think, to enable the bird to breathe with ease. Not asingle 
individual could I ever observe among them to act as a sentinel, and I 
have since doubted whether their acute sense of hearing was not sufh- 
cient to enable them to detect the approach of their enemies. The 
day quite closed by darkness, no more could be seen until the next 
dawn; but as often as the howlings of the numerous wolves that 
prowled through the surrounding woods were heard, the clanging cries 
of the Swans would fill the air. If the morning proved fair, the whole 
