298 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



but the cry which they keep uttering is now quite a different 

 one from that first heard — a softly shrill, quavering note, which 

 is sometimes lower and softer, sometimes higher and shriller. 

 The quavering quality gives it some resemblance to a laugh — a 

 queer sort of laugh, indeed, from which the human element 

 is wanting, yet suggestive of it, if even by its difference — 

 elementals might laugh like this. To have these birds thus 

 disporting within a few yards of one, sometimes, and looking at 

 one curiously, without anything like shyness, is delightful. 

 After a little time the two get separated, and, a little later 

 on, having returned from an attempt to find the Swans, I only 

 see the male — I think, at least, it is the larger of the two that is 

 left. The other is now nowhere to be seen, which makes me 

 think there must be a nest somewhere near — probably on the 

 island — which she has left, to catch a fish or two, and now 

 returned to. 



As for the Swans, the pair seem gone, for the time, but 

 between 11 and 12 p.m. the single one swims down the stream, 

 and then flies off, over the first waterfall, with a complaining 

 though musical cry. It must have circled back beyond the hill- 

 line, for, a little later, I see it fly out from behind the island, in 

 a way that I thiuk I know, and, accordingly, it is very soon 

 followed by another — I have no doubt the female of the pair — 

 putting it to flight. The latter, having chased it, a little, comes 

 down on the water, and swims back to the same point of the 

 island from which she flew out. Here she lands, and, walking 

 just beyond my sight, I, at once, hear the note of rejoicing, but 

 it is only a single one, nor has she been met, on her return, by 

 the male, who, had he been there, would in all probability have 

 flown down to her, on the water, as he did on a former occasion 

 — I feel sure, at any rate, that I should have seen something 

 of him. Just as the male left his partner and cygnets, last 

 night, on the nest, so he has also to-night, when they have 

 abandoned it. It would seem to be his custom thus to fly 

 abroad, nightly, as it would, no doubt, be that of the female as 

 well, were it not for the cygnets. It is the return to the cygnets, 

 therefore, which occasions these glad cries from the one parent, 

 at any rate— the mother — whilst the male is equally moved to 

 them by the return of his mate ; and she too, no doubt, will be 



