ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 138 



female, and when she is half-way towards the intruder — for as 

 such she is evidently considered — the latter flies, as it were, to 

 meet her, on which she reverses, and returns, when there is the 

 same scene of rejoicing between the two parents, over the cygnets, 

 as I have before described, but more marked and yet more 

 musical. The stranger Swan, meanwhile, has come down on 

 the water, some seventy to one hundred yards away, as I reckon 

 it, from the family group. It is evidently too near, and, this 

 time, the male goes out against her — at least, I think it is he, 

 though the stranger, which might seem to make this unlikely, 

 is almost certainly of the opposite sex. She does not await 

 him, however, but rises in flight, when he has only got half-way 

 towards her, upon which, with little apparent animosity, he 

 wheels and comes flying back again, and then there takes place 

 the finest and most interesting of these remarkably beautiful 

 scenes. The female Swan swims to welcome the male, on his 

 return, just as he has done her, upon the former occasions, and 

 the two, now, turned three-quarters towards each other, lift up 

 their long, graceful necks, and, in unison, wave their magnificent, 

 shining white wings, whilst repeatedly uttering their most lovely, 

 most musical cry. This is all done over the cygnets, as it were, 

 and makes such a picture of grace, beauty, and happiness, such 

 a lovely bird group, so charming a scene of bird rejoicing, as 

 words — at least, my words — are altogether inadequate to convey. 

 Some time afterwards it is all done over again, upon land, and 

 then, once more, in the water ; for, whilst I have been entering 

 this, all the family have swum round the island into another 

 blue, out-broadening of the stream, on that side of it, and on a 

 little projecting point of the grassy margent of this, I find them, 

 now, on cresting the intervening low hill. The cygnets are lying 

 down, whilst their parents stand, fronting each other, on either 

 side of them, as though to guard them, and still lift their heads, 

 wave their wings, rejoice, exult, and make music. All at once, 

 one of them flies out over the water, and, at the same time, I 

 see the stranger Swan upon it, who takes flight, as before. 

 Upon this — also just as before — the pursuing bird desists and 

 returns, the one that has been left with the cygnets flies, with 

 the usual music, to meet it, and as they come down together, 

 front to front, on the water, they almost touch, or perhaps 



