44 THE MUTE SWAN. 
not kill. Exactly the same thing happened the fifth time, the 
birds flew round and settled close to me, and I shot a third. 
The remaining two flew a little distance, and settled, but I 
thought it would be a pity to kill them. I considered that 
there would be more than I could skin myself (for I have no 
one that can do it for me) so I began to shoot Ducks, and then 
the two remaining Swans flew by me, one on the right and 
one on the left, so that I could easily have knocked them over 
with small shots. However I spared them and came home with 
three.” 
These specimens proved, as surmised by Mr. Watson, to 
belong to the present species. and to be adults—a noteworthy 
fact—it being almost exclusively birds of the year that visit 
India. 
But the most remarkable instances have yet to be noticed. 
On the 3rd of June 1878 Major Waterfield telegraphed to me 
from Peshawer that a Swan had just been shot. 
Later he wrote: “The Swan was killed on the Ojca Jhil on 
‘the 3rd of June; there were a pair, but the other flew away. 
The bird that I have had preserved for you measured exactly 
5 feet in length and 7 feet 5 inches in expanse. The feet and 
legs were black ; the upper mandible is reddish white ; its edge, 
lores, and lower mandible black.” 
A few days later Mr. D. B. Sinclair wrote to say that he had 
killed another Swan, a male, on the Ist of June at the Gulabad 
Jhil, 12 miles north-east of Peshawer, and on the 7th July 
he wrote to say that there was still at least one Swan left on 
this same jhil. 
The specimen sent by Major Waterfield proved to be a nearly 
mature C. o/or, but Mr. Sinclair’s bird, unfortunately imper- 
fectly preserved, decayed so rapidly in the hot weather that 
then prevailed, (the temperature was over 100° Far. in the 
shade at 10 A.M., in Peshawer at the time,) that it shortly grew 
a mass “to make men tremble who never weep;” and though, 
from what was said, I believe it also to have been o/ov, I cannot 
be certain. 
What could possibly keep a number of Swans down in the 
middle of June in one of the hottest places in India, I cannot 
pretend to say. 
Looking to the uncertainty that exists at present as to the 
number of species that visit us, and to the difficulty apparently 
experienced by many (a difficulty in which until I had studied 
the group I fully shared) in discriminating the young birds, it is 
very desirable that sportsmen should preserve every specimen 
they shoot, and submit them for examination to some competent 
ornithologist. 
