Wild Swans, Ci/gnus ? 



The following notes relate to these birds as observed without 

 reference to species. In " A Brife description of Ireland made 

 in this yeere, 1589, by Robert Payne/^ we are told that "There 

 be great store of wild swannes, -^ ■»«• -J^- ^ -k- -x- njuch 

 more plentiful than in England." Harris, in his History of the 

 county of Down published in 1744, says, of Cygmis ferus, — 

 '' Great numbers of them breed in the islands of Strangford lake" 

 (p. 234) ; and in another part of the volume, when enumerating 

 such of the islands as are known to him by name, and reckoning 

 fifty-four, remarks : — " Four of these islands are called Swan 

 Islands, from the number of swans that frequent them" (p, 154), 

 Smith, in his 'History of Cork^ (vol. ii. p. 351), states that 

 " wild swans are very common in the north of Ireland, but were 

 only observed in the south parts of the kingdom in the great frost 

 of 1739 ;" — what is said of the north maybe copied from Harris, 

 as Smithes work is dated 1749. 



In the month of October 1824, a Hock of about fifty wild swans 

 appeared in Belfast Bay. Captain Cortland G. Macgregor Skinner, 

 when quartered with Iiis regiment at Athlone, about the year 

 1830, saw seven of these birds (which he describes as having been 

 nearly as large as tame swans) that were killed on Lough Ree by 

 the discharge of a double-barrelled gun. In 1839 I learned that 

 for a number of years past a flock of eleven came to Portlough, 

 near Bogay, county of Donegal, early in winter, and remained 

 during the season.* The late Mr. John Nimmo, of Round - 

 stone, county Galway, had often observed wild swans passing 

 over that neighbourhood on wing; and about the year 1838, he 

 saw six or seven on Maam river, at the head of Lough Corrib, 

 to which place he was assured the species came regularly 

 every winter until the preceding few years, when, owing to the 

 country having become more frequented, they had been less 

 commonly there. Wild swans appear occasionally in flocks about 



* -Mr. Geo. Bowcu. 



