1 2 ANATID^. 



of wliicli number he killed live iu November 18i8. He has seen 

 them but of one size, similar to a living hooper, which he pointed 

 out to me on a pond at Islay House. On Loch-in-daal, a flock 

 of fifteen wild swans appeared early in the winter of 1848-49. 



Very interesting descriptions of the habits of wild swans, as 

 observed in Scotland, are given in St. John's ' Wild Sports of 

 the Highlands' (chap, xxiv.), and his 'Tour in Sutherlandsliire.' 

 A most eloquent passage on these birds will be found in the 

 ' Recreations of Christopher North' (vol. i. p. 73). 



The distinctive characters of the wild (C. ferns) and tame 

 swan [C. olor) are correctly pointed out by Harris, in connection 

 with the extracts given from his work at p. 7. Among the 

 fifty-four islands of Strangford Lough named by him, there 

 are Big Swan Island of twenty, and Little Swan Island of five, 

 acres ; a second one bearing the latter name ; and a fourth called 

 simply Swan Island, each of which is one acre in extent. 

 The map attached to the work is on so small a scale that these 

 islands are not laid down in it ; and witliin the present century 

 they seem to have been almost forgotten, or to have been called 

 by other names. In Williamson's large map of Down, published 

 in 1810, there are no Swan islands, nor do any appear in the 

 Ordnance index map of the county; but a Swan island is inserted 

 in one of the Ordnance baronial maps, on a very large scale, as 

 situated near the town of Strangford. There can be little doubt that 

 the islands originally received their names from being frequented by 

 these birds, which, in all probability, also bred there at one period. 

 Long subsequent to the date of Harris's volume — towards the end of 

 the last century — Low, in his ' Fauna Orcadensis,' informs us that 

 " a few pairs build in the holms of the loch of Stenues," in Orkney.* 

 The data, which will be found in the present volume under C.ferus 

 and C. Bewickii, will probably tend to the conclusion that in the 

 middle of the 19th century, as well as in 1589 (according to the 

 extract given at p. 7), wild swans are ''much more plentiful than 



* Noticed in preface to vol. i. p. xvii. 



