A VISITATION OF SWANS 



How general the interest in the matter had 

 become was to be shown me amusingly two days 

 afterward. I had gone home dejected, and yet 

 elated. I had witnessed a far more beautiful 

 flight of birds than I had ever dreamed of (a flight 

 of angels could hardly have surpassed it in my 

 imagination), but now all was over. So I thought. 

 But two mornings later, as I was trudging out 

 to the ranch over a muddy road, a man whom I 

 did not recognize leaned out of his buggy as we 

 met, and shouted after me, " The swans have 

 come bacL" And so they had, but five instead 

 of thirty-one. 



" I am hanging about," I wrote in my note- 

 book an hour afterward, " to see if more will be 

 called down. The swans are growing tame. They 

 no longer retreat to the middle of the lake every 

 time the ducks raise an alarm. Two are now in 

 their usual cove fast asleep on one leg in a few 

 inches of water, while the others are exploring 

 the shore in front of the engine-house. A casual 

 passer-by would take them for domesticated 

 birds without a second look." 



Not to prolong the story, be it said that the 

 swans remained in varying numbers (from two 

 to twelve being always present) until January 29. 

 Their stay had covered almost five weeks. Then 

 the last of them started, we may suppose, on 

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