158 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



of the coming of winter — that is to say, about the 

 middle of November — the swans begin to arrive 

 from their breeding grounds in the Arctic region. 

 Flock follows flock, until the dancing waters of 

 the Sound sparkle with their snow-white plumage, 

 and the air is filled with their soft musical notes. 

 It is hard indeed to imagine a more beautiful 

 picture than a large flock of these graceful creatures 

 lined up close together, looking in the distance 

 almost like snow-covered drift ice, and then to see 

 them rise. At last we can appreciate their size as 

 their great wings unfold and noisily strike the air 

 with powerful strokes in the effort to carry the 

 immense twenty-pound bodies clear of the water. 

 On a calm day they rise with difficulty, using the 

 feet to gain momentum, and often covering a dis- 

 tance of seventy-five feet or more before leaving 

 the water. With a fairly good breeze, however, 

 they hft themselves with astonishing rapidity by 

 heading directly into the wind. In watching them 

 start it does not strike the observer that they move 

 quickly, and in attempting to photograph them I 

 could scarcely bring myself to make the exposure 

 short enough to ensure a really sharp picture. The 

 fact that they did move rapidly was very evident 

 when I saw the birds on the focussing glass, for it 

 seemed almost impossible to keep them there, and 

 the camera had to be swung as though it were a 

 shotgun trained on a flight of wind-driven ducks. 



Once the swans are fairly under way their speed 

 is amazing— nearly a hundred miles an hour, and 

 that, too, with no apparent effort, for the slow wing 

 motion is very deceiving. Their endurance is as 



