AXATID^. 215 



This fine bird is verj- rare indeed in Devonshire, in the north 

 of the county especially, where we do nob remenil)er that we have 

 ever seen a specimen. Several Swans were shot on the Barnstaple 

 river in the severe winter of 181)0-91, and one of these is said to have 

 been a Whooper, but we have no knowledge that the identification 

 was correct. In Cornwall. Mr. Ilodd can onlj^ speak of three specimens, 

 and from what he states about them there can be no doubt that these 

 birds were not Whoopers, but only stray domestic Swans. On the Dorset 

 coast the Whooper occurs more frequently, and Mr. Mansel-Pleydell 

 remarks that it occasionally associates in the winter-time with the tame 

 birds on the Fleet, at Abbotsbuiy. In Poole Harbour, a classical resort 

 of wild-fowl, Colonel Hawker, many years ago, killed eight at a shot with 

 his punt-gun, and our edition of his celebrated ' Instructions to Young 

 Sportsmen" (Longman & Co., 1S2G) contains as its frontispiece a view of 

 Poole Harbour, in which a successful shot has just been made from a 

 punt, and lying on the water are dead and crippled Coots, Curlews, and 

 Erent Geese, together with a Swan with a broken wing, while another 

 Swan is making off in an attitude expressive of great astonishment. As 

 two other punts are represented, one blazing away, and the other 

 approaching the flocks of fowl, and retrievers and spaniels are also "all 

 over'" the picture, one can only wonder at the great tameness of Geese 

 and Swans in those days, so very different from our own experience in these 

 degenerate times ! Mr. Mansel-Pleydell adds that most of the " Wild 

 Swans " obtained in more recent years in Poole Harbour must be ascribed 

 to straggling Mute Swans. In the county of Somerset the Whooper is 

 exceedingly rare. Mr. Cecil Smith only knew of the one which was 

 sent from Bridgwater to Col. Montagu by his friend Mr. Anstice, in ISUo, 

 and conjectures that a Swan, shot many years ago (in 1829) out of a pair 

 which a])peared on his own pond at Lydeard House, may probably have been 

 a Whooper, although we concur with him in thinking that it was more 

 likely an example of Bewick's Swan, a far more common species in the 

 West of England. We ourselves know of no Somerset Whooper, and the 

 specimen in our own collection was shot on the Thames, in the first or 

 second year of the liilie Volunteer movement, by a volunteer, who cleverly 

 sent a bullet from a "long Enfield" through the bird's neck. This bird 

 followed us about in a hamper from one place in Devonshire to another, 

 as we chanced to be on a round of visits at the time, and when we at last 

 unpacked it had been killed close on three weeks, and the work of 

 skinning and mounting it was rather a gruesome task ! 



Bewick's Swan. Cijfpms Icimcki, Yarrcll. 



A casual visitor, of very rare occurrence in severe winters. 



Dr. Tlios. ShaptfT, in his ' Climate of the South of Devon," speaks of some 

 having been obtained in l8;j(J. Fifteen occurred in a Hock on the Exe and 

 Clyst, January 24th, IS^JS, and nearly all were kiUed. They weighed 

 from 14 lbs. to 20 lbs. (F. W. L. K., MS. Juuinul, i. p. 74). Une shot on 



