ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 135 



starting in search of the pair. I wish, now, that I had stayed 

 a little longer, to see if she settled herself down — though, if she 

 did, it was not for long — but the essential thing is that she took 

 possession of the nest immediately upon the departure of its 

 owners, which makes it more than probable that her struggle, by 

 it, with the male, originated in a similar attempt. 



The explanation which I place upon the whole of the above 

 facts is as follows :* That the stranger Swan is a desolate be- 

 reaved mother, and that the strong object of attraction for her is 

 a family of cygnets, not her own, has, for some time, been 

 growing more apparent to me, and will perhaps be disputed by 

 hardly anyone, after what I have just set down. The poor bird 

 evidently longs ardently for what she has, by some means, been 

 deprived of, and the taking of her eggs " in the interests of 

 science " must be included amongst the various causes by 

 which such bereavement and suffering may have been brought 

 about. Nay, since, on this same stream, only a short dis- 

 tance off, there is now an empty Swan's nest which, up to 

 a few days ago, had eggs in it, on which the Swans were 

 sitting, and since a Danish dealer, working specially, so I 

 was told, for an English scientific collector, has lately passed 

 here, in his wide-exterminating rounds, it is even possible that 

 the female of this pair, thus made childless, is the very stranger 

 bird who has had all this heartache inflicted on her, and who 

 still, at this moment, floats near to a point of land on which the 

 objects of her envy and longing are established, like the Peri at 

 the gates of Paradise. And now, once more, she is driven from 

 those gates, and, this time, grappled in the air, by her more 

 fortunate sister. This last incident — the first of the kind I have 

 seen — took place at only a little distance from where I was (and 

 am still) lying. The pursuing bird did not seize the plumage of 

 the intruder, which she could have done, and as one might have 

 expected her to, but bit at its beak, an action which was met in 

 the same way, by the latter. This pecking, however, was quite 

 ineffective, and hardly delayed the single Swan in her retreat. 

 Within a very few minutes, however, she returns, and is again 



* This conclusion is strengthened by my observations on the habits and 

 character of our own Mute Swan, and by what the keeper has told me in this 

 connection. 



