CHAP. XXIV WILD SWANS 219 



seem more independent of the moon, and to be chiefly guided 

 in their arrival by the weather. 



October 6th. — To-day we saw in the bay as many as fifty or 

 sixty wild swans,^ evidently just arrived ; we went home for 

 swan-shot, Eley's cartridges, and other munitions of war, but by 

 the time we had got all in readiness to open a campaign on the 

 fleet of snow-white birds, they all took flight. After sailing two 

 or three times round the bay, and after an amazing deal of 

 trumpeting and noise, they divided into separate parties, and 

 flew off", some to the east, and some to the west, towards their 

 different winter-quarters. 



October yth. — My old garde-chasse insisted on my starting 

 early this morning, nolens volens, to certain lochs six or seven 

 miles off", in order, as he termed it, to take our " satisfaction " of 

 the swans. I must say that it was a matter of very small satis- 

 faction to me, the tramping off in a sleety, rainy morning, 

 through a most forlorn and hopeless-looking country, for the 

 chance, and that a bad one, of killing a wild swan or two. 

 However, after a weary walk, we arrived at these desolate-look- 

 ing lochs ; they consist of three pieces of water, the largest 

 about three miles in length and one in width ; the other two, 

 which communicate with the largest, are much smaller and 

 narrower, indeed scarcely two gunshots in width ; for miles 

 around them the country is flat, and intersected with a mixture 

 of swamp and sandy hillocks. In one direction the sea is only 

 half a mile from the lochs, and in calm winter weather the wild- 

 fowl pass the daytime on the salt water, coming inland in the 

 evenings to feed. As soon as we were within sight of the lochs 

 we saw the swans on one of the smaller pieces of water, some 

 standing high and dry on the grassy islands, trimming their 

 feathers after their long journey, and others feeding on the 

 grass and weeds at the bottom of the loch, which in some parts 

 was shallow enough to allow of their pulling up the plants which 

 they feed on as they swam about, while numbers of wild ducks 

 of different kinds, particularly widgeons, swarmed round them 

 and often snatched the pieces of grass from the swans as soon 

 as they had brought them to the surface, to the great annoyance 



' Cygnus ferus, Moray. C. Bewichii (Bewick's swan), killed in Morayshire, Spyniej 

 1/Och Lee, etc. , is easily distinguished even at a distance from the C. ferus, being a 

 shorter and rounder-looking bird. It is not so wild as the C. ferus, as faf as my experi- 

 ence goes. — C. St. J, 



